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THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
FROM
SLAVERY TO FREEDOM
•The
■^
^ t i
THE
UNDERGEOUND RAILED AD
FROM
SLAVERY TO FREEDOM
BY
WILBUR H. aiEBERT
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN HISTORY
IN OHIO STATE DNIVEBSITT
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
ALBERT BUSHNELL HART
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1898
All rights reserved
A. / zcnn
COPTBIGBT, 1898,
By the MACMILLAU COMPANY.
J. S. Gushing » Co. — Berwick & Smith
Norwood MasB. U.S.A.
«/£
Eo Us Wife
INTRODUCTION
BY ALBERT BUSHNELL HART
Of all the questions which have interested and divided
the people of the United States, none since the foundation
of the Federal Union has been so important, so far-reaching,
and so long contested as slavery. During the first half of
the nineteenth century the other great national questions
were nearly all economic — taxation, currency, banks, trans-
portation, lands, — and they had a strong material basis, a
flavor of self-interest ; but though slavery had also an
economic side, the reasons for the onslaught upon it were
chiefly moral. The first objection brought by the slave-
power against the anti-slavery propaganda was the cry
of the sacredness of vested and property rights against
attack by sentimentalists ; but what dignified the whole
contest was the very fact that the sentiment for human
rights was at the bottom of it, and that the abolitionists felt
a moral responsibility even though property owners suffered.
The slavery question, which in origin was sectional, became
national as the moral issues grew clearer ; and finally
loomed up as the dominant question through the determina-
tion of both sides to use the power and prestige of the
national government. From the moral agitation came also
the personal element in the struggle, the development of
strong characters, like Calhoun, Toombs, Stephens and
Jefferson Davis on one side ; like Lundy, Lovejoy, Garrison,
Giddings, Sumner, Chase, John Brown and Lincoln on the
other.
Among the many weak spots in the system of slavery none
gave such opportunities to Northern abolitionists as the loco-
viii INTEODUCTION
1 motive powers of the slaves ; a " thing " which could hear its
owner talking about freedom, a "thing" which could steer
itself Northward and avoid the "patterollers," was a thing of
impaired value as a machine, however intelligent as a human
' being. From earliest colonial times fugitive slaves helped to
make slavery inconvenient and expensive. So long as slavery
was general, every slaveholder in every colony was a member
of an automatic association for stopping and returning fugi-
tives ; but, from the Revolution on, the fugitives performed
the important function of keeping continually before the
people of the states in which slavery had ceased, the fact
that it continued in other parts of the Union. Nevertheless,
though between 1777 and 1804 all the states north of Mary-
land threw off slavery, the free states covenanted in the
Federal Constitution of 1787 to interpose no obstacle to the
recapture of fugitives who might come across their borders ;
and thus continued to be partners in the system of slavery.
From the first there was reluctance and positive opposition
to this obligation ; and every successful capture was an
object lesson to communities out of hearing of the whip-
ping-post and out of sight of the auction-block.
In aiding fugitive slaves the abolitionist was making the
most effective protest against the continuance of slavery;
but he was also doing something more tangible ; he was
helping the oppressed, he was eluding the oppressor ; and at
the same time he was enjoying the most romantic and excit-
ing amusement open to men who had high moral standards.
He was taking risks, defying the laws, and making himself
liable to punishment, and yet could glow with the healthful
pleasure of duty done.
To this element of the personal and romantic side of the
slavery contest Professor Siebert has devoted himself in this
, book. The Underground Raiboad was simply a form of
i combined defiance of national laws, on the ground that those
laws were unjust and oppressive. It was the unconstitu-
tional but logical refusal of several thousand people to
INTRODUCTION ix
acknowledge that they owed any regard to slavery or were
bound to look on fleeing bondmen as the property of the
slaveholders, no matter how the laws read. It was also
a practical means of bringing anti-slavery principles to the
attention of the lukewarm or pro-slavery people in free
states; and of convincing the South that the abolitionist
movement was sincere and effective. Above all, the Under-
ground Railroad was the opportunity for the bold and
adventurous ; it had the excitement of piracy, the secrecy
of burglary, the daring of insurrection ; to the pleasure of
relieving the poor negro's sufferings it added the triumph
of snapping' one's fingers at the slave-catcher ; it developed
coolness, indifference to danger, and quickness of resource.
The first task of the historian of the Underground Railroad
is to gather his material, and the characteristic of this book
is to consider the whole question on a basis of established
facts. The effort is timely; for there are still living, or were
living when the work began, many hundreds of persons who
knew the intimate history of parts of the former secret system
of transportation ; the book is most timely, for these invalu-
able details are now fast disappearing with the death of the
actors in the drama. Professor Siebert has rescued and put
on record events which in a few years will have ceased to be
in the memory of living men. He has done for the history
of slavery what the students of ballad and folk-lore have
done for literature ; he has collected perishing materials.
Reminiscence is of course, standing alone, an insufficient
basis for historical generalization. On that point Professor
Siebert has been carefid to explain his principle : he does not
attempt to generalize from single memories not otherwise
substantiated, but to use reminiscences which confirm each
other, to search out telling illustrations, and to discover
what the tendencies were from numerous contrasted testi-
monies. Actual contemporary records are scanty; a few are
here preserved, such as David Putnam's memorandum, and
Campbell's letter ; and the crispness which they give to the
X INTRODUCTION
narrative makes us wisli for more. Tlie few available biog-
raphies, autobiographies, and contemporary memoirs have
been diligently sought out and used; and no variety of
sources has been ignored which seemed likely to throw light
on the subject. The ground has been carefully traversed ;
and it is not likely that much will ever be added to the body
of information collected by Professor Siebert. His list of
sources, described in the introductory chapter and enumer-
ated in the Appendices, is really a carefully winnowed bibliog-
raphy of the contemporary materials on slavery.
The book is practically divided into four parts : the Rail-
road itself (Chapters ii, v); the railroad hands (Chapters
iii, iv, vi); the freight (Chapters vii, viii); and political
relations and effects (Chapters ix, x, xi). Perhaps one of
the most interesting contributions to our knowledge of the
subject is the account of the beginnings of the system of
secret and systematic aid to fugitives. The evidence goes
to show that there was organization in Pennsylvania before
1800 ; and in Ohio soon after 1815. The book thus becomes
a much-needed guide to information about the obscure
anti-slavery movement which preceded William Lloyd Gar-
rison, and to some degree prepared the way for him ; and it
will prove a source for the historian of the influence of the
West in national development. As yet we know too little
of the anti-slavery movement which so profoundly stirred
the Western states, including Kentucky and Missouri, and
which came closely into contact with the actual conditions of
slavery. As Professor Siebert points out, most of the early
abolitionists in the West were former slaveholders or sons
of slaveholders.
Professor Siebert has applied to the whole subject a graphic
form of illustration which is at the same time a test of his
conclusions. How can the scattered reminiscences and
records of escapes in widely separated states be shown to
refer to the results of one organized method ? Plainly by
applying them to the actual face of the country, so as to see
INTRODUCTION xi
whether the alleged centres of activity have a geographical
connection. The painstaking map of the lines of the Under-
ground Railroad " system " is an historical contribution of a
novel kind ; and it is impossible to gainsay its evidence,
which is expounded in detail in one of the chapters of the
book. The result is a gratifying proof of the usefulness of
scientific methods in historical investigation ; one who lived
in an anti-slavery community before the Civil War is fasci-
nated by tracing the hitherto unknown stretches north and
south from the centre which he knew. The map bears testi-
mony not only to the wide-spread practice of aiding fugitives,
but to the devotion of the conductors on the Underground
Railroad. How useful a section of Mr. Siebert's map would
have beeu to the slave-catcher in the 50's, when so many
strange negroes were appearing and disappearing in the free
states ! The facts presented in the brief compass of the map
would have been of immense value also to the leaders of the
Southern Confederacy in 1861, as a confirmation of their
argument that the North would not perform its constitutional
duty of returning the fugitives ; yet there is no record in this
book of the betraying of the secrets of the U. G. R. R. by
any person in the service. The moral bond of opposition to
the whole slave power kept men at work forwarding fugi-
tives by a road of which they themselves knew but a small
portion. The political philosophers who think that the
Civil War might have been averted by timely concessions
would do well to study this picture of the wide distribution
of persons who saw no peace in slavery.
Amid all the varieties of anti-slavery men, from the
Garrisonian abolitionist to faint-hearted slaveholders like
James G. Birney, it is interesting to see how many had a
share in the Underground Railroad ; and how many earned
a reputation as heroes. Professor Siebert has gathered the
names of about 3,200 persons known to have been engaged
in this work — a roll of honor for many American families.
Everybody knew that the fugitives were aided by Fred
xii INTEODUCTION
Douglass, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Gerrit Smith,
Joshua Giddings, John Brown, Levi Coffin, Thomas Garrett
and Theodore Parker ; but this book gives us some account
of the interest of men like Thaddeus Stevens, not commonly
counted among the sons of the prophets; and performs a
special service to the student of history and the lover of
heroic deeds, by the brief account of the services of obscure
persons who deserve a place in the hearts of their country-
men. Men like Rev. George Bourne, Rev. James Duncan
and Rev. John Rankin, years before Garrison's propaganda,
had begun to speak and publish against slavery, and to
prepare men's minds for a righteous disregard of Fugitive
Slave Acts. Joseph Sider, with his carefully subdivided
peddler's wagon, deserves a place alongside the better
known Henry Box Brown. The thirty-five thousand stripes
of Calvin Fairbank, seventeen years a convict in the
Kentucky penitentiary, range him with Love joy as an
anti-slavery martyr. Rev. Charles Torrey had in the work
of rousing slaves to escape, the same devotion to a fatal duty
as that which animated John Brown. And no one who has
ever heard Harriet Tubman describe her part as " Moses " of
the fugitives can ever forget that African prophetess, whose
intense vigor is relieved by a shrewd and kindly humanity.
The quiet recital of the facts has all the charm of
romance to the passengers on the Underground Railroad :
whether travelling by night in a procession of covered
wagons, or boldly by day in disguises; whether boxed up
as so much freight, or riding on passes unhesitatingly given
by abolitionist directors of railroads ; the fugitives in these
pages rejoice in their prospect of liberty. The road sign
near Oberlin, of a tiger chasing a negro, was a white man's
joke; but it was a negro who said, apropos of his master's
discouraging account of Canada: "They put some extract
onto it to keep us from comin' "; and neither Whittier in
his poems, nor Harriet Beecher Stowe in her novels,
imagined a more picturesque incident than the crossing of
INTEODUCTION xiii
the Detroit River by Fairfield's "gang" of twenty-eight
rescued souls singing, " I'm on my way to Canada, where
colored men are free," to the joyful accompaniment of their
firearms.
To the settlements of fugitives in Canada Professor
Siebert has given more labor than appears in his book;
for his own visits supplement the accounts of earlier
investigators ; and we have here the first complete account
of the reception of the negroes in Canada and their progress
in civilization.
Upon the general question of the political effects of the
Underground Railroad, the book adds much to our informa-
tion, by its discussion of the probable numbers of fugitives,
and of the alarm caused in the slave states by their depart-
ure. The census figures of 1850 and 1860 are shown to be
wilfully false ; and the escape of thousands of persons seems
established beyond cavil. Into the constitutional question
of the right to take fugitives, the book goes with less
minuteness, since it is intended to be a contribution to
knowledge, and not an addition to the abundant literature
on the legal side of slavery.
It has been the effort of Professor Siebert to furnish the
means for settling the following questions : the origin of the
system of aid to the fugitives, popularly called the Under-
ground Railroad ; the degree of formal organization ; methods
of procedure ; geographical extent and relations ; the leaders
and heroes of the movement; the behavior of the fugitives
on their way ; the effectiveness of the settlement in Canada ;
the numbers of fugitives; and the attitude of courts and
communities. On all these questions he furnishes new light ;
and he appears to prove his concluding statement that " the
Underground Railroad was one of the greatest forces which
brought on the Civil War and thus destroyed slavery."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Sources or the Histoet of the Underground Railroad
PAGE
The Underground Road as a subject for research .... 1
Obscurity of the subject 2
Books dealing with the subject 2
Magazine articles on the Underground Railroad .... 5
Newspaper articles on the subject 6
Scarcity of contemporaneous documents 7
Reminiscences the chief source 11
The value of reminiscences illustrated 12
CHAPTER II
Origin and Growth of the Underground Road
Conditions under which the Underground Road originated
The disappearance of slavery from the Northern states .
Early provisions for the return of fugitive slaves
The fugitive slave clause in the Ordinance of 1787 .
The fugitive slave clause in the United States Constitution
The Fugitive Slave Law of 1793
The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
Desire for freedom among the slaves
Knowledge of Canada among the slaves ....
Some local factors in the origin of the underground movement
The development of the movement in eastern Pennsylvania, in New
Jersey, and in New York
The development of the movement in the New England states
The development of the movement in the West
The naming of the Road
17
17
19
20
20
21
22
25
27
30
83
36
37
44
XVI
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ni
The Methods of the Underground Railroad
Penalties for aiding fugitive slaves .
Social contempt suffered by abolitionists
Espionage practised upon abolitionists
Rewards for the capture of fugitives and the kidnapping of aboli
tionists
Devices to secure secrecy .
Service at night .
Methods of communication
Methods of conveyance
Zigzag and variable routes
Places of concealment
•Disguises ....
Informality of management
Colored and white agents .
'■-City vigilance committees .
Supplies for fugitives
Transportation of fugitives by rail
Transportation of fugitives by water
Rescue of fugitives under arrest
PAGE
47
48
50
52
54
54
56
59
61
62
64
67
69
70
76
78
81
83
CHAPTER IV
Underground Agents, Station-Keepers, or Conductors
-Underground agents, station-keepers, or conductors
Their hospitality
**' Their principles .
Their nationality
Their church connections
Their party affinities .
Their local standing .
Prosecutions of underground operators
Defensive League of Freedom proposed
-Persons of prominence among underground helpers
87
87
89-
90
93
99
101
101
103
104
CONTENTS
XTH
CHAPTER V
Study of the Map of the Underground Eailroad
^Geographical extent of underground lines
>-Eocation and distribution of stations
vSouthern routes
-I/ines of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York
^Routes of the New England states
i/Lines within the old Northwest Territory
Noteworthy features of the general map
Complex routes
v<Broken lines and isolated place names
. River routes
v'Soutes by rail
'--'Routes by sea
'■ Terminal stations
»--^ines of lake travel
■'' Canadian ports .
System
PACE
113-
114
116
120
128
134
139
141
141
142
142
144
145
147
148
CHAPTER VI
Abduction of Slaves from the South
Aversion among underground helpers to abduction of slaves . . 150
Abductions by negroes living along the northern border of the slave
states 151
Abductions by Canadian refugees 152
Abductions by white persons in the South 153
Abductions by white persons of the North 154
v^he Missouri raid of John Brown 162
KTohn Brown's great plan 166
Abductions attempted in response to appeals 168
Devotees of abduction 178
CHAPTER VII
Life of the Colored Refugees in Canada
Slavery question in Canada ........ 190
Flight of slaves to Canada 192
Refugees representative of the slave class 195
xvm CONTENTS
FASE
Misinformation about Canada among slaves 197 -
Hardships borne by Canadian refugees 198
Efforts toward immediate relief for fugitives 199
Attitude of the Canadian government 201
Conditions favorable to their settlement in Canada .... 203 -
Sparseness of population 203
Uncleared lands ........••• 204
Encouragement of agricultural colonies among refugees . . . 205
Dawn Settlement . 205
Elgin Settlement 207
Refugees' Home Settlement 209
Alleged disadvantages of the colonies 211
Their advantages 212
Refugee settlers in Canadian towns 217
Census of Canadian refugees ........ 220
Occupations of Canadian refugees 228
Progress made by Canadian refugees 224
Domestic life of the refugees 227
School privileges . . 228
Organizations for self-improvement 230
Churches 231
Rescue of friends from slavery 231-
Ownership of property 232
Rights of citizenship 233
Character as citizens 233
CHAPTER Vni
Fugitive Settlers in the Northern States
Number of fugitive settlers in the North . . . .
The Northern states an unsafe refuge for runaway slaves
Reclamation of fugitives in the free states
Protection of fugitives in the free states .
Object of the personal liberty laws ....
Effect of the law of 1850 on fugitive settlers
Underground operators among fugitives of the free states
235
237
239
242
245
246
251
CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX
Prosecutions of Underground Railroad Men
XIX
PAOE
**?!nactinent of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 254
Grounds on which the constitutionality of the measure was ques-
tioned . . * 254
M)enial of trial by jury to the fugitive slave 255
Summary mode of arrest 257
The question of concurrent jurisdiction between the federal and
state governments in fugitive slave cases 259
The law of 1793 versus the Ordinance of 1787 261
Power of Congress to legislate concerning the extradition of fugitive
slaves denied . 263
State officers relieved of the execution of the law by the Prigg de-
cision, 1842 264
>^mendment of the law of 1793 by the law of 1850 .... 265
Constitutionality of the law of 1850 questioned .... 267
■^irst case under the law of 1850 268
Authority of a United States commissioner 269
Penalties imposed for aiding and abetting the escape of fugitives . 273 -
Trial on the charge of treason in the Christiana case, 1854 . . 279
Counsel for fugitive slaves 281
Last case under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 .... 285
Attempted revision of the law 285
Destructive attacks upon the measure in Congress .... 286
^Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation 287
vRepeal of the Fugitive Slave Acts 288
CHAPTER X
The Underground Railroad in Politics
*^aluation of the Underground Railroad in its political aspect . 290
The question of the extradition of fugitive slaves in colonial times . 290
Importance of the question in the constitutional conventions . . 293
Failure of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 294
Agitation for a more efficient measure 295
-Diplomatic negotiations for the extradition of colored refugees from
Canada, 1826-1828 299
The fugitive slave a missionary in the cause of freedom . . . 300
XX CONTENTS
PAGE
302
Slave-hunting in the free states
Preparation for the abolition movement of 1830 .... 303
^•The Underground Railroad and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 . 308 ~
The law in Congress "510
^he enforcement of the law of 1850 316
Vflie Underground Road and Uncle Tom's Cabin .... 321 —
^■^litical importance of the novel 323
W,Sumner on the influence of escaped slaves in the North . . . 324 ■^
The spirit of nullification in the North 327
The Glover rescue, Wisconsin, 1854 327
The rendition of Burns, Boston, 1854 331
The rescue of Addison White, Mechanicsburg, Ohio, 1857 . . 334
The Oberlin-Wellington rescue, 1858 335
Obstruction of the Fugitive Slave Law by means of the personal
liberty acts 337
John Brown's attempt to free the slaves 338
CHAPTER XI
Effect of the Underground Railroad
The Underground Road the means of relieving the South of many
despairing slaves 340
'-dl.oss sustained by slave-owners through underground channels . 340
J The United States census reports on fugitive slaves .... 342
; Estimate of the number of slaves escaping into Ohio, 1830-1860 . 346
; Similar estimate for Philadelphia, 1830-1860 346
' Drain on the resources of the depot at Lawrence, Kansas, described
in a letter of Col. J. Bowles, April 4, 1859 347
Work of the Undergi-ound Railroad as compared with that of the
American Colonization Society 350
The violation of the Fugitive Slave Law a chief complaint of
Southern states at the beginning of the Civil War . . . 351
Refusal of the Canadian government to yield up the fugitive Ander-
son, 1860 352
So session of the Southern states begun 353
"'Conclusion of the fugitive slave controversy 355
-. General effect and significance of the controversy .... 356
ILLUSTRATIONS, PORTRAITS, FACSIMILES
AND MAPS
The Underground Railroad : Levi Coffin receiving a company of
fugitives in the outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio . . Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Isaac T. Hopper 17
The Runaway : a stereotype cut used on handbills advertising
escaped slaves 27
Crossing-place on the Ohio River at SteubenviUe, Ohio ... 47
The Rankia House, Ripley, Ohio 47
Facsimile of an Underground Message . . . .On page 57
Barn of Seymour Finney, Detroit, Michigan ..... 65
The Old First Church, Galesburg, Illinois 65
William StiU 75
Levi Coffin 87
Frederick Douglass 104
Caves in Salem Township, Washington County, Ohio . . . 130
House of Mrs. Elizabeth BufEum Chace, Valley Falls, Rhode Island 130
The Detroit River at Detroit, Michigan 147
Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio 147
Ellen Craft as she escaped from Slavery 163
Samuel Harper and Wife 163
Dr. Alexander M. Ross 180
Harriet Tubman 180
Group of Refugee Settlers at Windsor, Ontario, C.W. . . .190
Theodore Parker 205
Thomas Wentworth Higginson 205
Dr. Samuel G. Howe 205
Benjamin Drew 205
Church of the Fugitive Slaves, Boston, Massachusetts . . .235
Sahnon P. Chase 254
Tfiri
xxii ILLUSTRATIONS, ETC.
TAOtSQ PAGE
Thomas Garrett 254
Kush K. Sloane 282
Thaddeus Stevens 282
J. R. Ware .... 282
Rutherford B. Hayes 282
Gerrit Smith 290
Joshua R. Giddings 290
Charles Sumner 290
Richard H. Dana 290
Bust of Rev. John Rankin 307
Harriet Beecher Stowe 321
Captain John Brown 338
Facsimile of a Leaf from the Diary of Daniel Osborn On pages 344, 345
MAPS
Map of the Underground Railroad System . . Facing page 113
Map of Underground Lines in Southeastern Pennsylvania " 113
Map of Underground Lines in Morgan County, Ohio . On page 186
Lewis Falley's Map of the Underground Routes of Indiana and
Michigan On page 138
Map of an Underground Line through Livingston and La Salle
Counties, Illinois On page 139
Map of Underground Lines through Greene, Warren and Clinton
Counties, Ohio On page 140
APPENDICES
PASES
Appendix A: Constitutional Provisions and National Acts rela-
tive to Fugitive Slaves, 1787-1850 359-366
Appendix B : List of Important Fugitive Slave Cases . . 367-377
Appendix C : Figures from the United States Census Reports
relating to Fugitive Slaves 378, 379
Appendix D : Bibliography 380-402
Appendix E: Directory of the names of Underground Railroad
Operators and Members of Vigilance Committees . . 403-439
PREFACE
This volume is tlie outgrowth of an investigation begun
in 1892-1893, wlien the writer was giving a portion of his
time to the teaching of United States history in the Ohio
State University. The search for materials was carried on
at intervals during several years until the mass of informa-
tion, written and printed, was deemed sufficient to be sub-
jected to the processes of analysis and generalization.
Patience and care have been required to overcome the
difficulties attaching to a subject that was in an extraordi-
nary sense a hidden one ; and the author has constantly
tried to observe those well-known dicta of the historian ;
namely, to be content with the materials discovered without
making additions of his own, and to let his conclusions be
defined by the facts, rather than seek to cast these " in the
mould of his hypothesis."
Starting without preconceptions, the writer has been con-
strained to the views set forth in Chapters X and XI in
regard to the real meaning and importance of the under-
ground movement. And if it be found by the reader that
these views are in any measure novel, it is hoped that the
pages of this book contain evidence sufficient for their justi-
fication. There is something mysterious and inexplicable
about the whole anti-slavery movement in the United States,
as its history is generally recounted. According to the
accepted view the anti-slavery movement of the thirties and
the later decades has been considered as altogether distinct
from the earlier abolition period in our history, both in prin-
ciple and external features, and as separated from it by a
XXIV PKEFACB
considerable interval of time. The earlier movement is sup-
posed to have died a natural death, and the later to have
sprung into full life and vigor with the appearance of Gar-
rison and the Liberator. Issue is made with this view in
the following pages, where Macaulay's rational account of
revolutions in general may, perhaps, be thought to find
illustration. Macaulay says in one of his essays : " As the
history of states is generally written, the greatest and most
momentous revolutions seem to come upon them like super-
natural inflictions, without warning or cause. But the fact
is, that such revolutions are almost always the consequences
of moral changes, which have gradually passed on the mass
of the community, and which ordinarily proceed far before
their progress is indicated by any public measure. An inti-
mate knowledge of the domestic history of nations is there-
fore absolutely necessary to the prognosis of political events."
Or, the essayist might have added, to a subsequent under-
standing of them.
It is impossible for the author to make acknowledgments
to all who have contributed, directly and indirectly, to the
promotion of his research. A liberal use of foot-notes suf-
fices to reduce his obligations in part only. But, although
the great balance of his indebtedness must stand against him,
his special acknowledgments are due in certain quarters.
The writer has to thank Professor J. Franklin Jameson of
Brown University for calling his attention to a rare and im-
portant little book, which otherwise would almost certainly
have escaped his notice. To Professor Eugene Wambaugh
of the Harvard Law School he is indebted for the critical
perusal of Chapter IX, on the Prosecutions of Underground
Railroad Men, — a chapter based largely on reports of cases,
and involving legal points about which the layman may
easily go astray. The frequent citations of the monograph
on Fugitive Slaves by Mrs. Marion G. McDougall attest the
general usefulness of that book in the preparation of the
present work. For personal encouragement in the under-
PREFACE XXV
taking after the collection of materials had begun, and for
assistance while the study was being put in manuscript, the
author is most deeply indebted to Professor Albert Bushnell
Hart, and the Seminary of American History in Harvard
University, over which he and his colleague, Professor Ed-
ward Channing, preside. The proof-sheets of this book have
been read by Mr. F. B. Sanborn, of Concord, Massachusetts,
and, it is hardly necessary to add, have profited thereby in a
way that would have been impossible had they passed under
the eye of one less widely acquainted with anti-slavery times
and anti-slavery people. More than to all others the author's
gratitude is due to the members of his own household, with-
out whose abiding interest and ready assistance in many
ways this work could not have been carried to completion.
It should be said that no responsibility for the use made of
data or the conclusions drawn from them can justly be
imposed upon those whose generous ofl&ces have kept these
pages freer from discrepancies than they could have been
otherwise.
It is a fortunate circumstance that, by the kindness of the
artist, Mr. C. T. Webber, the reproduction of his painting
entitled "The Underground Railroad" can appear as the
frontispiece of this book. Mr. Webber was fitted by his
intimate acquaintance with the Coffin family of Cincinnati,
Ohio, and their remarkable record in the work of secret
emancipation, to give a sympathetic delineation of the Un-
derground Railroad in operation.
Ohio State Universitt,
October, 1898.
THE
UI^DERaROUND RAILROAD
FROM
SLAVERY TO FREEDOM
CHAPTER I
SOUECES OF THE HISTORY OP THE UNDEEGKOUND
KAILROAD
Historians who deal with the rise and culmination of the
anti-slavery movement in the United States have compara-
tively little to say of one phase of it that cannot be neglected
if the movement is to be fully understood. This is the so-
called Underground Railroad, which, during fifty years or
more, was secretly engaged in helping fugitive slaves to
reach places of security in the free states and in Canada.
Henry Wilson speaks of the romantic interest attaching to
the subject, and illustrates the cooperative efforts made by
abolitionists in behalf of colored refugees in two short chap-
ters of the second volume of his Itise and Fall of the Slave
Power in America.^ Von Hoist makes several references to
the work of the Road in his well-known History of the United
States, and predicts that " The time will yet come, even in
the South, when due recognition will be given to the touch-
ing unselfishness, simple magnanimity and glowing love of
freedom of these law-breakers on principle, who were for the
most part people without name, money, or higher educa-
tion." ^ Rhodes in his great work, the History of the United
•■ Chapters VI and VII, pp. 61-86. '■ Vol. HI, p. 552, foot-note.
B 1
2 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
States from the Compromise of 1850, mentions the system, but
considers it only as a manifestation of popular sentiment.^
Other writers give less space to an account of this enterprise,
although it was one that extended throughout many Northern
states, and in itself supplied the reason for the enactment of
the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, one of the most remarkable
measures issuing from Congress during the whole anti-slavery
struggle.
The explanation of the failure to give to this " institution ".
the prominence which it deserves, is to be found in the
secrecy in which it was enshrouded. Continuous through a
period of two generations, the Road spread to be a great sys-
tem by being kept in an oblivion that its operators aptly des-
ignated by the figurative use of the word "underground."
Then, too, it was a movement in which but few of those per-
sons were involved whose names have been most closely asso-
ciated in history with the public agitation of the question of
slavery, or with those political developments that resulted in
the destruction of slavery. In general the participants in
1 underground operations were quiet persons, little known out-
side of the localities where they lived, and were therefore
members of a class that historians find it exceedingly diffi-
cult to bring within their field of view.
Before attempting to prepare a new account of the Under-
ground Railroad, from new materials, something should be
said of previous works upon it, and especially of the seven
books which deal specifically with the subject : The Under-
ground Railroad, by the Rev. W. M. Mitchell ; Underground
Railroad Records, by William StiU ; The Underground Rail-
road in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania,
by R. C. Smedley; The Reminiscences of Levi Coffin; Sketches
in the History of the Underground Railroad, by Eber M. Pet-
tit ; From Dixie to Canada, by H. U. Johnson ; and Heroes
in Homespun, by Ascott R. Hope (a nom de plume for Robert
Hope Moncrieff).
While several of these volumes are sources of original
material, their value is chiefly that of collections of incidents,
affording one an insight into the workings of the Under-
1 History of the United States, Vol. II, pp. 74-77, 361, 362.
PRINTED SOURCES 3
ground Railroad in certain localities, and presenting types of
character among the helpers and the helped. In composi-
tion they are what one would expect of persons who lived
simple, strenuous lives, who with sincerity record what they
knew and experienced. They have not only the characteris-
tics of a deep-seated, moral movement, they have also an
undeniable value for historical purposes.
Mitchell's small volume of 172 pages was published in
England in 1860. Its author was a free negro, who served
as a slave-driver in the South for several years, then became
a preacher in Ohio, and for twelve years engaged in under-
ground work ; finally, about 1855, he went to Toronto, Can-
ada, to minister to colored refugees as a missionary in the
service of the American Free Baptist Mission Society. ^ It
was while soliciting money in England for the purpose of
building a chapel and schoolhouse for his people in Toronto
that he was induced to write his book. The range of expe-
rience of the author enabled him to relate at first hand many
incidents illustrative of the various phases of underground
procedure, and to give an account of the condition of the
fugitive slaves in Canada.^
Still's Underground Railroad Records, a large volume of
780 pages, appeared in 1872, and a second edition in 1883.
For some years before the War Mr. Still was a clerk in the
ofiice of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in Philadel-
phia ; and from 1852 to '1860 he served as chairman of the
Acting Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia, a body whose
special business it was to harbor fugitives and help them
towards Canada. About 1850 Mr. Still began to keep records
of the stories he heard from runaways, and his book is mainly
a compilation of these stories, together with some Under-
ground Railroad correspondence. At the end there are some
biographical sketches of persons more or less prominent in the
anti-slavery cause. The book is a mine of material relating
to the work of the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia.
1 Mitchell, Underground Bailroad, Preface, p. vi ; p. 17.
2 Mr. Mitchell divides his little book into two chapters, one on the "Under-
ground Railroad," occupying 124 pages, the other on the "Condition of
Fugitive Slaves in Canada," occupying 48 pages.
4 UNDEEGEOUXD RAILEOAD
Operations carried on in an extended field of six or seven
counties in southeastern Pennsylvania, over routes many of
which led to the Quaker City, are recounted in Smedley's
volume of 395 pages, published in 1883. The abundant
reminiscences and short biographies were patiently gathered
by the author from many aged participants in iinderground
enterprises.
In his Reminiscences, a book of 732 pages, Levi Coffin, the
reputed president of the Underground Railroad, relates his
experiences from the time when he began, as a youth in
North Carolina, to direct slaves northward on the path to
liberty, till the time when, after twenty years of service in
eastern Indiana and fifteen in Cincinnati, Ohio, he and his
coworkers were relieved by the admission of slaves within
the lines of the Union forces in the South. Mr. Coffin was
a Quaker of the gentle but firm type depicted by Harriet
Beecher Stowe in the character Simeon Halliday, of which he
may have been the original. It need scarcely be said, there-
fore, that his autobiography is characterized by simplicity and
candor, and supplies a fund of information in regard to those
branches of the Road with which its author was connected.
Pettit's Sketches comprise a series of articles printed in the
Fredonia (New York) Censor, during the fall of 1868, and
collected in 1879 into a book of 174 pages. The author was
for many years a "conductor" in southwestern New York,
and most of the adventures narrated occurred within his
personal knowledge.
Johnson's From Dixie to Canada is a little volume of 194
pages, in which are reprinted some of the many stories first
published by him in the Lalce Shore Home Magazine during
the years 1883 to 1889 under the heading, " Romances and
Realities of the Underground Raiboad." The data that
most of these tales embody were accumulated by research,
and while the names of operators, towns and so forth are
authentic, the writer allows himself the license of the story-
teller instead of restricting himself to the simple recording
of the information secured. His investigations have given
him an acquaintance with the routes of northeastern Ohio
and the adjacent portions of Pennsylvania and New York.
AETICLES IN PEKIOBICAiS 5
Hope's volume, published in 1894, does not increase the
number of our sources of information, inasmuch as its
materials are derived from Stdl's Underground Railroad
Records and Cofiin's Reminiscences. It ■was written by an
Englishman apparently as a popular exposition of the hidden
methods of the abolitionists.
To these books should be added a pamphlet of thirty pages,
entitled The Underground Railroad, by James H. Fairchild,v---
D.D., ex-President of Oberlin College, published in 1895
by the Western Reserve Historical Society.^ The author
had personal knowledge of many of the events he narrates
and recounts several underground cases of notoriety; he
thus affords a clear insight into the conditions under which
secret aid came to be rendered to runaways.
It is surprising that a subject, the mysterious and romantic
character of which might be supposed to appeal to a wide
circle of readers, has not been duly treated in any of the
modern popular magazines. During the last ten years a few
articles about the Underground Railroad have appeared in
The Magazine of Western History? The Firelands Pioneer,^
The Midland Monthly,*^ The Canadian Magazine of Polities,
Science, Art and Literature^ and The American Sistorical
Review.^ Three of these publications, the first two and the
last, are of a special character ; the other two, although they
appeal to the general reader, cannot be said to have attempted
more than the presentation of a few incidents out of the
experience of cei-tain underground helpers. From time to
time the Xew England Magazine has given its readers
glimpses of the Underground Road by its articles dealing
with several well-known fugitive slave cases, and a bio-
^ Tract No. 87, in Vol. IV, pp. 91-121, of the publications of the Society.
- ilarch, 1887, pp. 672-6S2.
' July, 1888, pp. 19-88. This periodical is issued by the Firelands His-
torical Society of Ohio. The bulk of the number mentioned is made
up of contributions in regard to the Underground Boad in nortiwestem
Ohio.
* Februarv. 1895, pp. 173-180.
5 May. 1895, pp. 9-16.
« April, 1896, pp. 455-463. This article is a preliminary study prepared by
the author.
6 UNDEEGEOUND EAILEOAD
graphical sketch of the abductor Harriet Tubman.^ But it
would be quite impossible for any one to gain an adequate
idea of the movement from the meagre accounts that have
appeared in any of these magazines.
In contrast with the magazines, the newspapers have fre-
quently published some of the stirring recollections of sur-
viving abolitionists, but the result for the reader is usually
that he learns only some anecdotes concerning a small section
of the Road, without securing an insight into the real signifi-
cance of the underground movement. Without undertaking
here to print a full list of articles on the subject, it is worth
while to notice a few newspapers in which series of sketches
have appeared of more or less value in extending our geo-
graphical knowledge of the system, or in illustrating some
important phase of its working. The New Lexington (Ohio)
Tribune, from October, 1885, to February, 1886, contains a
series of reminiscences, written by Mr. Thomas L. Gray, that
supply interesting information about the work in southeastern
Ohio. The Pontiac (Illinois) Sentinel, in 1890 and 1891,
published fifteen chapters of "A History of Anti-Slavery
Days " contributed by Mr. W. B. Fyffe, recording some epi-
sodes in the development of this Road in northeastern Illinois.
The Sentinel, of Mt. Gilead, Ohio, in a series of articles, one
of which appeared every week from July 13 to August 17,
1893, under the name of Aaron Benedict, affords a knowledge
of the way in which the secret work was carried on in a typi-
cal Quaker community. In The Republican Leader, of Salem,
Indiana, at various dates from Nov. 17, 1893, to April, 1894,
E. Hicks Trueblood printed the results of some investiga-
tions begun at the instance of the author, which disclose
the principal routes of south central Indiana. An account
of the peculiar methods of the pedler Joseph Sider, an ab-
ductor of slaves, is also given by Mr. Trueblood. The Rev.
1 Llllie B. C. Wyman ; " Black and White," in New England Magazine,
N.S., Vol. V, pp. 476-481 ; " Harriet Tubman," ibid., March, 1896, pp. 110-
118. Nina M. Tiffany: "The Escape of William and Ellen Craft," ibid.,
January, 1890, p. 524 et seq.; "Shadrach," ibid., May, 1890, pp. 280-283;
" Sims," ifttU, June, 1890, pp. 385-388; " Anthony Burns," ibid., July, 1890,
pp. 569-576. A. H. Grimk6 : "Anti-Slavery Boston," ibid., December, 1890,
pp. 441-459.
CONTEMPORANEOUS DOCUMENTS 7
John Todd has preserved in the columns of the Tabor (Iowa)
Beacon, in 1890 and 1891, some valuable reminiscences,
running through more than twenty numbers of the paper,
under the title, " The Early Settlement and Growth of West-
ern Iowa"; several of these are devoted to fugitive slave
cases.^
It is not surprising, in view of the unlawful nature of
Underground Railroad service, that extremely little in the
way of contemporaneous documents has descended to us even
across the short span of a generation or two, and that theie
are few written data for the history of a movement that gave
liberty to thousands of slaves. The legal restraints upon the
rendering of aid to slaves bent on flight to Canada were, of
course, ever present in the minds of those that pitied the
bondman, whether a well-informed lawyer, like Joshua R.
Giddings, or an illiterate negro, who, notwithstanding his
fellow-feeling, was yet sufficiently sagacious to avoid the open
violation of what others might call the law of the land. There-
fore, written evidence of complicity was for the most part
carefully avoided ; and little information concerning any part
of the work of the Underground Road was allowed to get
into print. It is known that records and diaries were kept
by certain helpers ; and a few of the letters and messages
that passed between station-keepers have been preserved.
These sources of information are as valuable as they are
rare : they would doubtless be more plentiful if the Fugitive
Slave Law of 1850 had not created such consternation as to
lead to the destruction of most of the telltale documents.
The great collection of contemporaneous material is that
of William Still, relating mainly to the work of the Vigilance
Committee of Philadelphia. The motives and the methods
of Mr. Still in keeping his register are given in the following
words : " Thousands of escapes, harrowing separations, dread-
ful longings, dark gropings after lost parents, brothers, sisters,
and identities, seemed ever to be pressing on my mind. While
I knew the danger of keeping strict records, and while I did
not then dream that in my day slavery would be blotted out,
' Other newspapers in which materials have been found are mentioned in
the Appendix, pp. 395-398.
8 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
or that the time would come when I could publish these rec-
ords, it used to afford me great satisfaction to take them down
fresh from the lips of fugitives on the way to freedom, and
to preserve them as they had given them. . . ." ^ When in
1852 Mr. Still became the chairman of the Acting Committee
of Vigilance his opportunities were doubtless increased for
obtaining histories of cases ; and he was then directed as head
of the committee " to keep a record of all their doings, . . .
especially of the money received and expended on behalf of
every case claiming their interposition." ^ During the period
of the War, Chairman Still concealed the records and docu-
ments he had collected in the loft of Lebanon Cemetery
building, and although their publication became practicable
when the Proclamation of Emancipation was issued, the
Underground Railroad Records did not appear until 1872.^
Theodore Parker, the distinguished Unitarian clergyman
of Boston, and one of the most active members of the Vigi-
lance Committee of that city, kept memoranda of occurrences
growing out of the attempted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave
Law in his neighborhood. He was outspoken in his opposition
to the law, and was not less bold in gathering into a journal,
along with newspaper clippings and handbills referring to the
troubles of the time, manuscripts of his own bearing on the
unlawful procedure of the Committee. This journal or scrap-
book, given to the Boston Public Library in 1874 by Mrs.
Parker,* was compiled day by day from March 15, 1851, to
February 19, 1856, and throws much light on the rendition
of the fugitives Burns and Sims.
John Brown, of Osawattomie, left a few notes of his mem-
orable journey through Kansas and Iowa, on his way to Canada
in the winter of 1858 and 1859, with a company of slaves res-
cued by him from bondage in western Missouri. On the back
of the original draft of a letter written by Brown for the New
York Tribune soon after the slaves had been taken from their
1 Underground Bailroad Becords, pp. xxxiii, xxxiy.
2 Ibid., p. 611, where is printed an article from the Pennsylvania Freeman,
December 9, 1852, giving an account of the formation of the Committee.
' See pp. xxxiv, xxxv, xxxvi.
* The title Mr. Parker gave to this scrap-book is as follows : "Memoranda
of the Troubles in Boston occasioned by the infamous Fugitive Slave Law."
CONTEMPORAKBOUS DOCUMENTS 9
masters, appear the names of station-keepers of the Under-
ground Railroad in eastern Kansas, and a record of certain
expenditures forming, doubtless, a part of the cost of his trip.^
When the fearless abductor arrived at Springdale, Iowa, late
in February, he wrote to a friend in Tabor a statement con-
cerning the " Reception of Brown and Party at Grinnell, Iowa,
compared with Proceedings at Tabor," in which he set down
in the form of items the substantial attentions he had received
at the hands of citizens of Grinnell.^ These meagre records,
together with the letter written to the Tribune mentioned
above, are all that Brown wrote, so far as known, giving ex-
plicit information in regard to an exploit that created a stir
throughout the country.
Mr. Jirch Piatt, of the vicinity of Mendon, Illinois, recorded
his experiences as a station-keeper in a "sort of diary and
farm record," and in a "blue-book," and appears to have
been the only one of the underground helpers of Illinois that
ventured to chronicle matters of this kind. The diary is
stiU extant, and shows entries covering a period of more
than ten years, closing with October, 1859; the following
items will illustrate sufficiently the character of the record : —
"May 19, 1848. Hannah Coger arrived on the U. G. Rail-
road, the last $100.00 for freedom she was to pay to Thomas
Anderson, Palmyra, Mo. The track is kept bright, it being
the 3rd time occupied since the first of April." . . .
" Nov. 9, '54. Negro hoax stories have been very high in
the market for a week past."
" Oct. 1859. U. G. R. R. Conductor reported the passage
of five, who were considered very valuable pieces of Ebony,
all designated by names, such as John BrooJcs, Daniel Brooks,
Mason Bushrod, Sylvester Luchet and Hanson Grause. Have
understood also that three others were ticketed about mid-
summer."
In Ohio, Daniel Osborn, of the Alum Creek Quaker
Settlement, in the central part of the state, kept a diary, of
1 Sanborn, Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 482.
2 Ibid., pp. 488, 489.
10 UNDEEGEOUND EAILEOAD
which to-day only a leaf remains. This bit of paper gives a
record of the number of negroes passing through the Alum
Creek neighborhood during an interval of five months, from
April 14 to September 10, 1844, and is of considerable impor-
tance, because it supplies data that furnish, when taken in
connection with other terms, the elements for an interesting
computation of the number of slaves that escaped into Ohio.^
In the correspondence of Mr. David Putnam, of Point
Hamar, near Marietta, Ohio, there were found a few letters
relating to the journeys of fugitives. That even these few
letters remain is doubtless due to neglect or oversight on the
part of the recipient. It is noticeable that some of them
bear unmistakable signs of intended secrecy, the proper
names having been blotted out, or covered with bits of
paper.
Underground managers who were so indiscreet as to keep
a diary or letters for a season, were induced to part with such
condemning evidence under the stress of a special danger.
Mr. Robert Purvis, of Philadelphia, states that he kept a
record of the fugitives that passed through his hands and
those of his coworkers in the Quaker City for a long period,
till the trepidation of his family after the passage of the Fugi-
tive Slave Bill in 1850 caused him to destroy it.^ Daniel
Gibbons, a Friend, who lived near Columbia in southeastern
Pennsylvania, began in 1824 to keep a record of the number
of fugitives he aided. He was in the habit of entering in his
book the name of the master of each fugitive, the fugitive's
own name and his age, and the new name given him. The
data thus gathered came in time to form a large volume,
but after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law Mr. Gibbons
burned this book.^ William Parker, the colored leader in
the famous Christiana case, was found by a friend to have a
large number of letters from escaped slaves hidden about \is
house at the time of the Christiana affair, September 11, 1851,
and these fateful documents were quickly destroyed. Had
they been discovered 6y the officers that visited Parker's
1 See Chap. XI, p. 346.
" Conversation with Eohert Purvis, Philadelphia, Pa., December 24, 1895.
» Smedley, Underground Bailroad, pp. 56, 57.
COLLECTION OF EEMTNISCENCES 11
house, they might have brought disaster upon many persons. ^
Thus, the need of secrecy constantly served to prevent the
making of records, or to bring about their early destruction.
The written and printed records do give a multitude of
unquestioned facts about the Underground Railroad; but
when wishing to find out the details of rational management,
the methods of business, and the total amount of traffic, we
are thrown back on the recollections of living abolitionists as
the main source of information ; from them the gaps in the
real history of the Underground Railroad must be filled, if
filled at all.
It is with the aid of such memorials that the present vol-
ume has been written. Reminiscences have been gathered
by correspondence and by travel from many surviving aboli-
tionists or their families ; and recollections of fugitive slave
days have been culled from books, newspapers, letters and
diaries. During three years of the five years of preparation
the author's residence in Ohio afforded him opportunity to
visit many places in that state where former employees of
the Underground Railroad could be found, and to extend
these explorations to southern Michigan, and among the sur-
viving fugitives along the Detroit River in the Province of
Ontario. Residence in Massachusetts during the years 1895-
1897 has enabled him to secure some interesting information
in regard to underground lines in New England. The mate-
rials thus collected relate to the following states : Iowa, Wis-
consin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, Massachusetts and Vermont, besides a few items con-
cerning North Carolina, Maryland and Delaware.
Underground operations practically ceased with the begin-
ning of the Civil War. In view of the lapse of time, the
reasons for trusting the credibility of the evidence upon
which our knowledge of the Underground Road rests should
be stated. Some of the testimony dealt with in this chapter
was put in writing during the period of the Road's operation,
or at the close of its activity, and, therefore, cannot be easily
questioned. But it may be said that a large part of the
1 Smedley, Underground Mailroad, pp. 120, 121.
12 TJNDERGROTJND RAILROAD
materials for this history were drawn from written and oral
accounts obtained at a much later date ; and that these mate-
rials, even though the honesty and fidelity of the narrators
be granted, are worthy of little credit for historical purposes.
Such a criticism would doubtless be just as applied to remin-
iscences purporting to represent particular events with great
detail of narration, but clearly it would lose much of its
force when directed against recollections of occurrences that
came within the range of the narrator's experience, not once
nor twice, but many times with little variation in their main
features. It would be difficult to imagine an " old-time "
abolitionist, whose faculties are in a fair state of preservation,
forgetting that he received fugitives from a certain neighbor
or community a few miles away, that he usually stowed
them in his garret or his haymow, and that he was in the
habit of taking them at night in all kinds of weather to one
of several different stations, the managers of which he knew
intimately and trusted implicitly. Not only did repetition
serve to deepen the general recollections of the average opera-
tor, but the strange and romantic character of his unlawful
business helped to fix them in his mind. Some special occur-
rences he is apt to remember with vividness, because they
were in some way extraordinary. If it be argued that the
surviving abolitionists are now old persons, it should not be
forgotten that it is a fact of common observation that old per-
sons ordinarily remember the occurrences of their youth and
prime better than events of recent date. The abolitionists,
as a class, were people whose remembrances of the ante-bel-
lum days were deepened by the clear definition of their gov-
erning principles, the abiding sense of their religious convic-
tions, and the extraordinary conditions, legal and social,
under which their acts were performed. The risks these
persons ran, the few and scattered friends they had, the con-
centration of their interests into small compass, because of
the disdain of the communities where they lived, have se-
cured to us a source of knowledge, the value of which cannot
be lightly questioned. If there be doubt on this point, it
must give way before the manner in which statements gath-
ered from different localities during the last five years articu-
VALUE OF REMINISCENCES 13
late together, the testimony of different and sometimes widely
separated witnesses combining to support one another.^
' The elucidation by new light of some obscure matter
already reported, the verification by a fresh witness of some
fact already discovered, gives at once the rule and test of an
investigation such as this. Out of many illustrations that
might be given, the following are offered. Mr. J. M. Forsyth,
of Northwood, Logan County, Ohio, writes under date Sep-
tember 22, 1894: "In Northwood there is a denomination
known as Covenanters ; among them the runaways were safe.
Isaac Patterson has a cave on his place where the fugitives
were secreted and fed two or three weeks at a time until
the hunt for them was over. Then friends, as hunters, in
covered wagons would take them to Sandusky. The highest
number taken at one time was seven. The conductors were
mostly students from Northwood. All I did was to help get
up the team. . . ."
The Rev. J. S. T. Milligan, of Esther, Pennsylvania, Decem-
ber 5, 1896, writes entirely independently: "In 1849 my
brother . . . and I went ... to Logan Co., Ohio, to conduct
a grammar school ... at a place called Northwood. The
school developed into a college under the title of Geneva
Hall. J. R. W. Sloane'^ . . . was elected President and
moved to Northwood in 1851. . . . The region was settled
by Covenanters and Seceders, and every house was a home
for the wanderers. But there was a cave on the farm of a
man by the name of Patterson, absolutely safe and fairly
1 The value of reminiscences and memoirs Is considered in an article on
" EecoUections as a Source of History," by the Hon. Edward L. Pierce, in
the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Mistorical Society, March and April,
1896, pp. 473-490. This, with the remarks of Professor H. Morse Stephens
in his article entitled " Eecent Memoirs of the French Directory," American
Historical Review, April, 1896, pp. 475, 476, 489, should be read as a cor-
rective by the student that finds himself constrained to have recourse to
recollections for information.
2 The Rev. J. R. W. Sloane, D.D., was the father of Professor William M.
Sloane, of Columbia University, New York City. Professor Sloane, in a
letter recently received, says: "The first clear, conscious memory I have is
of seeing slaves taken from our garret near midnight, and forwarded towards
Sandusky. I also remember the formal, but rather friendly, visitation of
the house by the sheriff's posse." Sate of letter, Paris, November 19, 1896
14 UNDEEGEOUND EAILEOAD
comfortable for fugitives. In one instance thirteen fugitives,
after resting in the cave for some days, were taken by the
students in two covered wagons to Sandusky, some 90 miles,
where I had gone to engage passage for them on the Bay
City steamboat across the lake to Maiden — where I saw them
safely landed on free soil, to their unspeakable joy. Indeed,
I thought one old man would have died from the gladness
of his heart in being safe in freedom. I went from Belle
Centre [near Northwood] by rail, and did not go with the
land escort — but from what they told me of their expe-
rience, it was often amusing and sometimes thrilling. They
were ostensibly a hunting party of 10 or 12 armed men. . . .
The two covered wagons were a 'sanctum sanctorum' into
which no mortal was allowed to peep. . . . The word of
command, ' Stand back,' was always respected by those who
were unduly intent upon seeing the thirteen deer . . .
brought from the woods of Logan and Hardin counties and
being taken to Sandusky."
In the same letter Mr. Milligan corroborates some infor-
mation secured from the Eev. R. G. Ramsey, of Cadiz, Ohio,
August 18, 1892, in regard to an underground route in
southern Illinois. Mr. Ramsey related that his father, Robert
Ramsey, first engaged in Underground Railroad work at
Eden, Randolph County, Illinois, in 1844, and that he carried
it on at intervals until the War. " The fugitives," he said,
"came up the river to Chester, Illinois, and there they
started northeast on the state road, which followed an old
Indian trail. The stations were each in a community of
Covenanters, ..." and existed, according to his account,
at Chester, Eden, Oakdale, Nashville and Centralia. "Be-
sides my father," said Mr. Ramsey, " John Hood and two
brothers, James B. and Thomas McClurkin, lived in Oakdale,
where my father lived during the last thirty-five years of his
life. He lived in Eden before this time. . . . " ^ The Rev.
Mr. Milligan writes as follows: "My father removed to
Randolph Co., 111., in 1847, and with Rev. Wm. Sloane . . .
and the Covenanter congregations under their ministry kept
a very large depot wide open for slaves escaping from Mis-
1 Conversation with the Eev. E. G. Eamsey, Cadiz, Ohio, August 18, 1892.
VALUE OF REMINISCENCES 15
souri. Scores at a time came to Sparta [the post-office of
the Eden settlement mentioned above] — my father's region,
■were harbored there, . . . and finally escorted to Elkhorn
[about two miles from Oakdale], the region of Father Sloane,
where they were sheltered and escorted ... to some friends
in the region of Nashville, 111., and thence north on the regu-
lar trail which I am not able further to locate. At Sparta,
Coultersville and Elkhorn there was an almost constant
supply of fugitives. . . . But . . . few were ever gotten
from the aegis of the Hayes and Moores and Todds and
McLurkins and Hoods and Sloanes and Milligans of that
region."
The evidence above quoted has the well-known value of
two witnesses, examined apart, who corroborate each other;
and it also illustrates the way in which the pieces of under-
ground routes may be joined together. These letters, together
with some additional testimony, enable us to trace on the map
a section of a secret line of travel in southern Illinois.
Another example throws light on a channel of escape in
northeastern Indiana. While Levi Coffin lived at Newportt
(now Fountain City), Indiana, he sometimes sent slaves north-
ward by way of what he called " the Mississinewa route," ^ from
the Mississinewa River, near which undoubtedly it ran for a
considerable distance. This road seems to have been called
also the Grant County route. In the most general way only
do these descriptions tell anything about the route. However,
correspondence with several people of Indiana has brought it
to light. One letter^ informs us in regard to fugitives de-
parting from Newport : " If they came to Economy they were
sent to Grant Co. . . ." Now, so far as known, Jonesboro'
was the next locality to which they were usually forwarded,
and the line from this point northward is given us by the
Hon. John Ratliff, of Marion, Indiana, who had been over it
with passengers. He says that the first station north of
Jonesboro' was North Manchester, where " Morris " Place
1 Beminiscences, p. 184.
2 Letter of John Charles, Economy, Wayne County, Indiana, January 9,
1896. Mr. Charles is a Quaker, and took part in the underground work at
Economy.
16 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
was agent; the next station, Goshen, where Dr. Matchett
harbored fugitives; and thence the line ran to Young's
Prairie,^ which is in Cass County, Michigan. The same sec-
tion of Road, but with a few additional stations, is marked out
by William Hayward. The additional stations may not have
existed at the time when Mr. RatlifE served as a guide, or he
may have forgotten to mention them. Mr. Hayward writes :
" My cousin, Maurice Place, often brought carriage loads of
colored people from North Manchester, Wabash Co., to my
father's house, six miles west of Manchester on the Rochester
road. . . . We would keep them . . . until sometime in the
night ; then my father would go with them to Avery Brace's
. . . three miles . . . north, through the woods. He took
them . . . seven miles farther ... to Chauncey Hurlburt's
in Kosciusko Co. . . . They (the Hurlburts) took them
twelve miles farther ... to Warsaw, to a man by the name
of Gordon, and he took them to Dr. Matchett's in Elkhart
Co., not far from Goshen. There were friends there to help
them to Michigan." ^
In weighing the testimony amassed, the author has had
the advantage of personal acquaintance with many of those
furnishing information ; and the internal evidence of letters
has been considered in estimating the worth of written testi-
mony. Doubtless the work could have been more thoroughly
executed, if the collection of materials had been systemati-
cally undertaken by some one a decade or two earlier. It is
certain that it could not have been postponed to a later
period. Since the inception of this research the ravages of
time have greatly thinned the company of witnesses, who
count it' among their chiefest joys that they were permitted
to live to see their country rid of slavery, and the negro race
a free people.
1 Letter from Charles W. Osbom, Economy, Indiana, March 4, 1896. Mr.
Osborn obtained the nameS of stations in conversation with Mr. Ratliff.
2 Letter of 'William Hayward.
'^
jr
/>
^
^
b
U^&^
ONE OF THE PIONEERS IN THE UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT IN
PHILADELPHIA AND NEW YORK.
Mr, Hopper is supposed to have resorted to underground methods as early as 1787.
CHAPTER II
ORIGIN AND GROWTH OI' THE UNDERGROUND ROAD
The Underground Road developed in a section of country-
rid of slavery, and situated between two regions, from one of
which slaves were continually escaping with the prospect of
becoming indisputably free on crossing the borders of the
other. Not a few persons living within the intervening ter-
ritory were deeply opposed to slavery, and although they
were bound by law to discountenance slaves seeking free-
dom, they felt themselves to be more strongly bound by con-
science to give them help. Thus it happened that in the
course of the sixty years before the outbreak of the War
of the Rebellion the Northern states became traversed by
numerous secret pathways leading from Southern bondage
to Canadian liberty.
Slavery was put in process of extinction at an early period
in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and the New Eng-
land states. From the five and a fraction states created out
of the Northwestern Territory slavery was excluded by
the Ordinance of 1787. It is interesting to note how rapid
was the progress of emancipation in the Northeastern states,
where the conditions of climate, industry and public opinion
were unfavorable to the continuance of slavery. In 1777
emancipation was begun by the action of Vermont, which
upon its separation from New York adopted a constitution
in which slavery was prohibited. Pennsylvania and Massa-
chusetts took action three years later. Pennsylvania pro-
vided by statute for gradual abolition, and its example was
followed by Rhode Island and Connecticut in 1784, by New
York in 1799, and by New Jersey in 1804. Massachusetts
was less direct, but not less effective, in securing the extinc-
tion of slavery ; happily it had inserted in the declaration of
o 17
18 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
rights prefixed to its constitution: "All men are born free
and equal, and have certain natural, essential and inalien-
able rights." ^ This clause received at a later time strict
interpretation at the bar of the state supreme court, and
slavery was held to have ceased with the year 1780.
There is little to be said about the remaining group of
states with which we are here concerned. Their territorial
organizations were effected under the provisions of the Ordi-
nance of 1787. One of the most important of these pro-
visions is as follows : " There shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than
in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted." ^ It was this feature, introduced into
the great Ordinance by New England men, that rendered
futile the many attempts subsequently made by Indiana Ter-
ritory to have slavery admitted within its own boundaries by
congressional enactment. " It is probable," says Rhodes,
" that had it not been for the prohibitory clause, slavery
would have gained such a foothold in Indiana and Illinois
that the two would have been organized as slaveholding
states." ^ The five states, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan
and Wisconsin were therefore admitted to the Union as free
states. West of the Mississippi River there is one state, at
least, that must be added to the group just indicated, namely,
Iowa. Slaveholding was prevented within its domain by
the Act of Congress of 1820, prohibiting slavery in the
territory acquired under the Louisiana purchase north of
latitude 36° 30', and several years before this law was
abrogated Iowa had entered statehood with a constitution
that fixed her place among the free commonwealths. The
enfranchisement of this extended region was thus accom-
plished by state and national action. The ominous result
was the establishment of a sweeping line of frontier between
the slaveholding South and the non-slaveholding North, and
thereby the propounding to the nation of a new question,
1 Constitution of Massachusetts, Part I, Art. 1 ; quoted by Du Bois, Sup-
pression of the Slave Trade, p. 225.
2 See Appendix A, p. 359.
' History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 16.
RENDITION OF FUGITIVES IN THE COLONIES 19
that of the status of fugitives in free regions. The elements
were in the proper condition for the crystallization of this
question. —
The colonies generally had found it necessary to provide
regulations in regard to fugitives and the restoration of them
to their masters. Such provisions, it is probable, were reason-
ably well observed as long as runaways did not escape beyond
the borders of the colonies to which their owners belonged ;
but escapes from the territory of one colony into that of an-
other were at first left to be settled as the state of feeling
existing between the two peoples concerned should dictate.
In 1643 the New England Confederation of Plymouth, Massa-'
chusetts, Connecticut and New Haven, unwilling to leave the
subject of the delivery of fugitives longer to intercolonial
comity, incorporated a clause in their Articles of Confedera-
tion providing : " If any servant runn away from his master
into any other of these confederated Jurisdiccons, That in
such case vpon the Certyficate of one Majistrate in the Juris-
diccon out of which the said servant fled, or upon other due
proofs, the said servant shall be deliuered either to his Mas-
ter or any other that pursues and brings such Certificate or
proofe." About the same time an agreement was entered into
between the Dutch at New Netherlands and the English at
New Haven for the mutual surrender of fugitives, a step that
was preceded by a complaint from the commissioners of the
United Colonies to Governor Stuyvesant of New Netherlands,
to the effect that the Dutch agent at Hartford was harboring
one of their Indian slaves, and by the refusal to return some
of Stuyvesant's runaway servants from New Haven until the
redress of the grievance. It was only when some of the fugi-
tives had been restored to New Netherlands, and a proclama-
tion, issued in a spirit of retaliation by the Lords of the West
India Company, forbidding the rendition of fugitive slaves to
New Haven, had been annulled, that the agreement for the
mutual surrender of runaways was made by the two parties.
Negotiations in regard to fugitives early took place between
Maryland and New Netherlands ; at one time on account of
the flight of some slaves from the Southern colony into the
Northern colony, and later on account of the reversal of the
20 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
conditions. The temper of the Dutch when calling for their
servants in 1659 was not conciliatory, for they threatened, if
their demand should be refused, "to publish free liberty,
access and recess to all planters, servants, negroes, fugitives,
and runaways which may go into New Netherland." The
escape of fugitives from the Eastern colonies northward to
Canada was also a constant source of trouble between the
French and the Dutch, and between the French and English.^
When, therefore, emancipation acts were passed by Ver-
mont and four other states the new question came into exist-
ence. It presented itself also in the Western territories.
The framers of the Northwest Ordinance found themselves
confronted by the question, and they dealt with it in the
spirit of compromise. They enacted a stipulation for the
territory, "that any person escaping into the same, from
whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the
original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and
conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service
aforesaid." ^
Meanwhile the Federal Convention in Philadelphia had the
same question to consider. The result of its deliberations on
the point was not different from that of Congress expressed
in the Ordinance. Among the concessions to slavery that
the Federal Convention felt constrained to make, this provi-
sion found place in the Constitution : " No person held to
service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping
into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service
or labor may be due." ^ Neither of these clauses appears to
have been subjected to much debate, and they were adopted
by votes that testify to their acceptableness ; the former re-
ceived the support of all members present but one, the latter
passed unanimously.
In the sentiment of the time there seems to have been no
1 M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 2-11.
^ Journals of Congress, XII, 84, 92.
3 Constitution of the United States, Art. IV, § 2. See Bevised Statutes of
the United States, I, 18. See also Appendix A, p. 359.
FUGITIVE SLAVE CLAUSE IN THE CONSTITUTION 21
sense of humiliation on the part of the North over the con-
clusions reached concerning the rendition of escaped slaves.
It had been seen by Northern men that the subject was one
requiring conciliatory treatment, if it were not to become a
block in the way of certain Southern states entering the
Union; and, besides, the opinion generally prevailed that
slavery would gradually disappear from all the states, and
the riddle would thus solve itself.^ The South was pleased,
but apparently not exultant, over the supposed security
gained for its slave property. General C. C. Pinckney, of
South Carolina, probably expressed the view of most South-
erners when he said that the terms for the security of slave
property gained by his section were not bad, although they
were not the best from the slaveholders' standpoint, and that
they permitted the recapture of runaways in any part of
America — a right the South had never before enjoyed.^ In
abstract law the rights of the slave-owner had in truth been
well provided for. Especially deserving of note is the fact
that a constitutional basis had been furnished for claims
which, in case slavery did not disappear from the country —
a contingency not anticipated by the fathers — might be in-
sisted upon as having the fundamental and positive sanction
of the government. But what would be the fate of the run-
ning slave was a matter with which, after all, private princi-
ples and sympathies, and not merely constitutional provisions,
would have a good deal to do in each case.
For several years the stipulations for the rendition of fugi-
tive slaves remained inoperative. At length, in 1791, a case
of kidnapping occurred at Washington, Pennsylvania, and
this served to bring the subject once more to the public
mind. Early in 1793 Congress passed the first Fugitive Slave
Law.^ This law provided for the reclamation of fugitives
from justice and fugitives from labor. We are concerned, of
course, with the latter class only. The sections of the act
dealing with this division are too long to be here quoted :
1 Elliot's Debates. See also George Livermore's Historical Research
Respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes, as Citi-
zens and as Soldiers, 1862, p. 51 et seq.
2 EUiot's Debates, UI, 277. " Appendix A, pp. 359-361.
22 tWDERGROUOT) RAILROAD
they empowered the owner, his agent or attorney, to seize the
fugitive and take him before a United States circuit or dis-
trict judge within the state where the arrest was made, or
before any local magistrate within the county in which the
seizure occurred. The oral testimony of the claimant, or an
affidavit from a magistrate in the state from which he came,
must certify that the fugitive owed service as claimed. Upon
such showing the claimant secured his warrant for removing
the runaway to the state or territory from which he had fled.
Five hundred dollars fine constituted the penalty for hinder-
ing arrest, or for rescuing or harboring the fugitive after
notice that he or she was a fugitive from labor.
All the evidence goes to show that this law was ineffec-
tual ; Mrs. McDougall points out that two cases of resistance
to the principle of the act occurred before the close of 1793.^
Attempts at amendment were made in Congress as early as
the winter of 1796, and were repeated at irregular intervals
down to 1850. Secret or " underground " methods of rescue
were already well understood in and around Philadelphia by
1804. Ohio and Pennsylvania, and perhaps other states,
heeded the complaints of neighboring slave states, and gave
what force they might to the law of 1793 by enacting laws
for the recovery of fugitives within their borders. The law
of Pennsylvania for this purpose was passed the same year in
which Mr. Clay, then Secretary of State, began negotiations
with England looking toward the extradition of slaves from
Canada (1826) ; but it was quashed by the decision of the
United States Supreme Court in the Prigg case in 1842.^ By
1850 the Northern states were traversed by numerous lines
of Underground Railroad, and the South was declaring its
losses of slave property to be enormous.
The result of the frequent transgressions of the Fugitive
Slave Law on the one hand and of the clamorous demand for
a measure adequate to the needs of the South on the other,
was the passage of a new Fugitive Recovery Bill in 1850.^ The
1 Fugitive Slaves, p. 19.
2 See Chap. IX, pp. 259-267 ; also Stroud, Sketch of the Laws Belating
to Slavery in the Several States, 2d ed., pp. 220-222.
0 Appendix A, pp. 361-366.
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW OF 1850 23
increased rigor of the provisions of this act was ill adapted
to generate the respect that a good law secures, and, indeed,
must have in order to be enforced. The law contained feat-
ures sufficiently objectionable to make many converts to the
cause of the abolitionists ; and a systematic evasion of the
law was regarded as an imperative duty by thousands. The
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was based on the earlier law, but
was fitted out with a number of clauses, dictated by a self-
interest on the part of the South that ignored the rights of
every party save those of the master. Under the regulations
of the act the/certificate authorizing the arrest and removal
of a fugitive slave was to be granted to the claimant by the
United States commissioner, the courts, or the judge of the
proper circuit, district, or county. If the arrest were made
without process, the claimant was to take the fugitive forth-
with before the commissioner or other official, and there the
case was to be determined in a summary manner. The
refusal of a United States marshal or his deputies to execute
a commissioner's certificate, properly directed, involved a
fine of one thousand dollars ; and failure to prevent the es-
cape of the negro after arrest, made the marshal liable, on
his official bond, for the value of the slave. When necessary
to insure a faithful observance of the fugitive slave clause in
the Constitution, the commissioners, or persons appointed by
them, had the authority to summon the posse comitatus of
the county, and " all good citizens " were " commanded to
aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution " of the
law. The testimony of the alleged fugitive could not be re-
ceived in evidence. Ownership was determined by the sim-
ple affidavit of the person claiming the slave ; and when
determined it was shielded by the certificate of the commis-
sioner from " all molestation ... by anj"- process issued by
any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever."
Any act meant to obstruct the claimant in his arrest of the
fugitive, or any attempt to rescue, harbor, or conceal the fugi-
tive, laid the person interfering liable " to a fine not exceed-
ing one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding
six months," also liable for " civil damages to the party in-
jured in the sum of one thousand dollars for each fugitive so
24 TINDERGROirND RAILROAD
lost." In all cases where the proceedings took place befoi
a commissioner he was " entitled to a fee of ten dollars i
full for his services," provided that a warrant for the fug
tive's arrest was issued ; if, however, the fugitive was di
charged, the commissioner was entitled to five dollars onlyj
By the abolitionists, at whom it was directed, tliis law wj
detested. A government, whose first national manifesto coi
tained the exalted principles enshrined in the Declaration (
Independence, stooping to the task of slave-catching, violate
all their ideas of national dignity, decency and consistenc]
Many persons, indeed, justified their opposition to the law i
the familiar words: "We hold these truths to be self-eviden
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed b
their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that amon
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Th
scriptural injunction " not to deliver unto his master th
servant that hath escaped," ^ was also frequently quoted b
men whose religious convictions admitted of no compromisf
They pointed out that the law virtually made all Norther
citizens accomplices in what they denominated the crime c
slave-catching ; that it denied the right of trial by jury, resi
ing the question of lifelong- liberty on ex-parte evidence
made ineffective the writ of habeas corpus; and offered
bribe to the commissioner for a decision against the negro
The penalties of fine and imprisonment for offenders agains
the law were severe, but they had no deterrent effect upo
those engaged in helping slaves to Canada. On the contrary
the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 stimulated the work of secre
emancipation. " The passage of the new law," says a recen
investigator, " probably increased the number of anti-slaver
people more than anything else that had occurred during th
whole agitation. Many of those formerly indifferent wei
roused to active opposition by a sense of the injustice of th
Fugitive Slave Act as they saw it executed in Boston an
1 Statutes at Large, IX, 462-465.
2 Deut. xxiii, 15, 16.
" See Some Becollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, by S. J. May, p. 3'.
et seq. ; Stroud's Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several State
2d ed., 1856, pp. 271-280 ;■ "Wilson, History of the Bise and Fall of the Sla
Power, Vol. II, pp. 304-322.
DESIRE FOR EREEDOM AMONG SLAVES 25
elsewhere. ... As Mr. James Freeman Clarke has said, ' It
was impossible to convince the people that it was right to
send back to slavery men who were so desirous of freedom
as to run such risks. All education from boyhood up to
manhood had taught us to believe that it was the duty of all
men to struggle for freedom.' "^
The desire for freedom was in the mind of nearly every en-
slaved negro. Liberty was the subject of the dreams and
visions of slave preachers and sibyls ; it was the object of
their prayers. The plaintive songs of the enslaved race were
full of the thought of freedom. It has been well said that
" one of the finest touches in Uncle Tom's Cabin is the joyful
expression of Uncle Tom when told by his good and indul-
gent master that he should be set free and sent back to his
old home in Kentucky. In attributing the common desire of
humanity to the negro the author was as true as she was
effective." ^ To slaves living in the vicinity, Mexico and
Florida early afforded a welcome refuge. Forests, islands
and swamps within the Southern states were favorite places
of resort for runaways. The Great Dismal Swamp became
the abode of a large colony of these refugees, whose lives
were spent in its dark recesses, and whose families were
reared and buried there. Even in this retreat, however, the
negroes were not beyond molestation, for they were systemat-
ically hunted by men with dogs and guns.^ Scraps of in-
formation about Canada and the Northern states were gleaned
and treasured by minds recognizing their own degradation,
but scarcely knowing how to take the first step towards the
betterment of their condition.
There can be no doubt that the form in which slavery ex-
isted in the South during the opening decade of the present
century was comparatively mild ; but it is quite clear that it
soon exchanged this character for one from which the amen-
1 M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 43 ; J. F. Clarke, Anti-Slavery
Days, p. 92.
2 Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 377.
« F. L. Olmsted, Journey in the Back Country, p. 155 ; Rev. W. M.
Mitchell, The Underground Bailroad, pp. 72, 73 ; M. G. McDougall, Fugi-
tive Slaves, p. 57.
26 XnSfDERGROUND RAILROAD
ities of the patriarchal type had practically disappear'
With the rapid expansion of the industries peculiar to
South after the opening up of the Louisiana purchase,
invention of the cotton gin, and the removal of the Indii
from the Gulf states, came the era of the slave's dismay. 1
auction block and the brutal overseer became his dread wl
awake, his nightmare when asleep. That his fears were j
ill founded is proved by the activity of the slave-marts
Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans and Washington fr
the time of the migrations to the Mississippi territory ui
the War. Alabama is said to have bought millions of doll
worth of slaves from the border states up to 184:9. Dew
timated that six thousand slaves were carried from Virgii
though not all of these were sold to other states.^
The fear of sale to the far South must have stimulai
slaves to flight. That the number of escapes did increase
deduced from the consensus of abolitionist testimony. C
sole reliance is upon this testimony until the appearance
the United States census reports for 1850 and 1860;^ a
the exhibits on fugitive slaves in these compendiums we i
constrained by various considerations to regard as inadequa
However, the flight of slaves from the South was not w]
the new conditions would readily account for. We m
conclude, therefore, that the deterring effect of ignorai
and the sense of the difficulties in the way we»e reenforc
after 1840 by increased vigilance on the part of the sla
owning class, owing to the rise in value of slave proper
" Since 1840," says a careful observer, " the high price
slaves may be supposed ... to have increased the vigilai
and energy with which the recapture of fugitives is foUov
up, and to have augmented the number of free negroes
duced to slavery by kidnappers. Indeed it has led t(
proposition being quite seriously entertained in Virginia,
enslaving the whole body of the free negroes in that state
legislative enactment." ^ Then, too, the negro's attachm
^ Edward Ingle, /Southern Side-TJghCs, p. 293.
2 Tliese reports will be dealt with in aiiotlier connection. See Chap
pp. 342, 343.
3 G. M. Weston, Progress of Slavery in the United States, Washing
D.C., 1858, pp. 22, 23.
Vol.111. N6.VW. ' J17L\M837
TWs picture of apoor fugitive is fronj one of the stereotypy cuts irjauufactured
in ttus city for the southern maiket, and used on liandbills otrering rewards fir
runaway slaves. , i , ■» ,
THE RUNAWAY.
(Slightly enlarged from TKq Anti-Sla'Dery Record, published in New York City by the Araencan
Anti-Slavery Society.)
INCENTIVES TO PLIGHT ( 27
to the land of his birth, and to his kindred, when these were
not torn from him, must be allowed to have hindered flight
in many instances ; when, however, the appearance of the
dreaded slave-dealer, or the brutality of the overseer or the
master, spread dismay among the hands of a plantation, flights
were likely to follow. This was sometimes the case, too,
when by the death of a planter the division of his property
among his heirs was made necessary. William Johnson, of
Windsor, Ontario, ran away from his Kentucky master
because he was threatened with being sent South to the
cotton and rice fields.^ Horace Washington, of Windsor,
after working nearly two years for a man that had a claim on
him for one hundred and twenty-five dollars, reminded his
employer that the original agreement required but one year's
labor, and asked for release. Getting no satisfaction, and
fearing sale, he fled to Canada.^ Lewis Richardson, one of
the slaves of Henry Clay, sought relief in flight after receiv-
ing a hundred and fifty stripes from Mr. Clay's overseer.^
William Edwards, of Amherstburg, Ontario, left his master
on account "of a severe flogging.* One of the station-keepers
of an underground line in Morgan County, Ohio, recalls an
instance of a family of seven fugitives giving as the cause of
their flight the death of their master, and the expected scat-
tering of their number when the division of the estate should
occur.®
It has already been remarked that slaves began to find their
way to Canada before the opening of the present century, but
information in regard to that country as a place of refuge can
scarcely be said to have come into circulation before the War
of 1812. The hostile relations existing between the two nations
at that time caused negroes of sagacious minds to seek their
liberty among the enemies of the United States.® Then, too,
soldiers returning from the War to their homes in Kentucky
1 Conversation with "William Johnson, "Windsor, Ontario, July, 1895.
2 Conversation with Horace "Washington, Windsor, Ontario, Aug. 2, 1895.
s The Liberator, April 10, 1846.
* Conversation with William Edwards, Amhersthurg, Ontario, Aug. .3,
1895.
6 Letter of H. C. Harvey, Manchester, Kan. , Jan. 16, 1893.
6 S. G. Howe, The Befugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 11, 12.
28 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
and Virginia brought the news of the disposition of the Cana-
dian government to defend the rights of the self-emiuicipated
slaves under its jurisdiction. Rumors of this sort gave hope
and courage to the blacks that heard it, and, doubtless, the
welcome reports were spread by these among trusted compan-
ions and friends. By 1815 fugitives were crossing the West-
ern Reserve in Ohio, and regular stations of the Underground
Railroad were lending them assistance in that and other por-
tions of the state.^
After the discovery of Canada by colored refugees from the
Southern states, it was, presumably, not long before some of
them, returning for their families and friends, gave circulation
in a limited way to reports more substantial than the vague
rumors hitherto afloat. Among the escaped slaves that carried
the promise of Canadian liberty across Mason and Dixon's line
were such successful abductors as Josiah Henson and Harriet
Tubman. In 1860 it was estimated that the number of ne-
groes that journeyed annually from Canada to the slave states
to rescue their fellows was about five hundred. It was said
that these persons " carried the Underground Railroad and the
Underground Telegraph into nearly every Southern state." ^
The work done by these fugitives was supplemented by the
cautious dissemination of news by white persons that went
into the South to abduct slaves or encourage them to escape,
or while engaged there in legitimate occupations used their
opportunities to pass the helpful word or to afford more sub-
stantial aid. The Rev. Calvin Fairbank, the Rev. Charles T.
Torrey and Dr. Alexander M. Ross may be cited as notable
examples of this class. The latter, a citizen of Canada, made
extensive tours through various slave states for the express
purpose of spreading information about Canada and the routes
by which that country could be reached. He made trips into
Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee, and did not
think it too great a risk to make excursions into the more
southern states. He went to New Orleans, and from that
point set out on a journey, in the course of which he visited
» Wilson, History of the Bise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. II, p. 63.
» Redpath, The Public Life of Captain John Brown, p. 229.
KNOWLEDGE OF CANADA AMONG SLAVES 29
Vicksburg, Selma and Columbus, Mississippi, Augusta, Geor-
gia, and Charleston, South Carolina.^
Considering the comparative freedom of movement between
the slave and the free states along the border, it is easy to
understand how slaves in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and
Missouri might pick up information about the " Land of
Promise " to the northward. Isaac White, a slave of Kanawha
County, Virginia, was shown a map and instructed how to get
to Canada by a man from Cleveland, Ohio. Allen Sidney, a
negro who ran a steamboat on the Tennessee River for his
master, first learned of Canada from an abolitionist at Florence,
Alabama.^ Until the contest over the peculiar institution had
become heated, it was not an uncommon thing for slaves to be
sent on errands, or even hired out to residents of the border
counties of the free states. Notwithstanding Ohio's political
antagonism to slavery from the beginning, there was a " tacit
tolerance " of slavery by the people of the state down to about
1835 ; and " numbers of slaves, as many as two thousand it was
sometimes supposed, were hired . . . from Virginia and Ken-
tucky, chiefly by farmers." Doubtless such persons heard
more or less about Canada, and when the agitation against
slavery became vehement, they were approached by friends,
and many were induced to accept transportation to the Queen's
dominions.^
Depredations of this sort caused alarm among slaveholders.
They sought to deter their chattels from flight by talking
freely before them about the rigors of the climate and the
poverty of the soil of Canada. Such talk was wasted on the
slaves, who were shrewd enough to discern the real meaning
of their masters. They were alert to gather all that was said,
and interpret it in the light of rumors from other sources.
Thus, masters themselves became disseminators of information
1 Dr. A. M. Ross, Recollections and Experiences of an Abolitionist, 2d ed.,
1876, pp. 10, 11, 15, 39.
2 Conversation with White and Sidney in Canada West, August, 1895.
' Eufus King, Ohio, in American Commonwealths, pp. 364, 365, relates
that some of these slaves were discharged from servitude " by writs of habeas
corpus procured in their names," and that "numbers were abducted from
the slave states and concealed, or smuggled by the 'Underground Rail-
road' into Canada."
30 TUSTDERGROUND RAILROAD
they meant to withliold. In this and other ways the slaves of
the border states heard of Canada. The sale of some of these
slaves to the South helps to explain the knowledge of Canada
possessed by many blacks in those distant parts. When Mr.
Ross visited Vicksburg, Mississippi, he found that " many of
these negroes had heard of Canada from the negroes brought
from Virginia and the border slave states ; but the impression
they bad was that, Canada being so far away, it would be
useless to try to reach it." ^ Notwithstanding the distance,
the number of successful escapes from the interior as well as
from the border slave states seems to have been sufficient to
arouse the suspicion in the minds of Southerners that a secret
organization of abolitionists had agents at work in the South
running olf slaves. This suspicion was brought to light dur-
ing the trial of Richard Dillingham in Tennessee in 1849.^
The labors of Mr. Ross several years later gave color to the
same notion. These facts help to explain the insistence of
the lower Southern states on the passage and strict enforce-
ment of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850.
With the growth of a thing so unfavored as was the Un-
derground Road, local conditions must have a great deal to
do. The characteristics of small and scattered localities,
and even of isolated families, are of the first importance in
the consideration' of a movement such as this. These little
communities were in general the elements out of which the
underground system built itself up. The sources of the con-
victions and confidences that knitted these communities
together in defiance of what they considered unjust law can
only be learned by the study of local conditions. The ii>
corporation in the Constitution of the compromises concern-
ing slavery doubtless quieted the consciences of many of the
early friends of universal liberty. It was only natural, how-
ever, that there should be some that would hold such con-
cessions to be sinful, and in violation of the principles asserted
in the Declaration of Independence and in the very Preamble
of the Constitution itself. These persons would cling tena-
1 Dr. A. M. Ross, The Recollections and Experiences of an Abolitionist,
p. 38.
2 A. L. Benedict, Memoir of Richard Dillingham, p. 17.
FAVOEABLE LOCAL CONDITIONS 31
ciously to their -views, and would aid a fugitive slave when-
ever one would ask protection and help. It is not strange
that representatives of this class should be found more fre-
quently among the Quakers than any other sect. In south-
eastern Pennsylvania and in New Jersey the work of helping
slaves to escape was, for the most part, in the hands of
Quakers from the beginning. This was true also of Wil-
mington, Delaware, New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Valley
Falls, Rhode Island, as of a number of important centres in
western Pennsylvania, and eastern, central and southwestern
Ohio, in eastern Indiana, in southern ilichigan and in eastern
Iowa.
Anti-slavery views prevailed against the first attempts at
enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 in Massa-
chusetts, and spread to other localities in the New England
states. When the tide of emigration to the Western states
set in, settlers from New England were given more frequent
occasions to put their principles into practice in their new
homes than they had known in the seaboard region. The
western portions of New York and Pennsylvania, as well as
the neighboring section of Ohio, called the Western Reserve,
are dotted over with communities where negroes learned the
meaning of Yankee hospitality. Like Joshua R. Giddings,
the people of these communities claimed to have borrowed
their abolition sentiments from the writings of Jefferson,
whose " abolition tract," Giddings said, " was called the Dec-
laration of Independence." ^ In northern Illinois there were
many centres of the New England type, though, of course,
not all the underground stations in that region were kept by
New Englanders.
In a few neighborhoods settlers from the Southern states
were helpers. These persons had left the South on account
of slavery ; they preferred to raise their families away from
influences they felt to be harmful ; and they pitied the slave.
It was easy for them to give shelter to the self-freed negro.
/in south central Ohio, in a district of fo\ir or five counties
locally known as the old Ghillicothe Presbytery, a number of
the early preachers were anti-slavery men from the Southern
1 George W. Julian, Life of Joshua B. Giddings, p. 157.
32 UNDEEGROUND BAILROAD
states. Among the number were John Rankin, of Ripley,
James Gilliland, of Red Oak, Jesse Lockhart, of Russellville,
Robert B. Dobbins, of Sardinia, Samuel Crothers, of Green-
field, Hugh S. Fullerton, of Ghillicothe, and William Dickey,
of Ross or Fayette County. The Presbyterian churches
over which these men presided became centres of opposition
to slavery, and fugitives finding their way into the vicinity
of any one of them were likely to receive the needed help.V
The stations in Bond, Putnam and Bureau counties, Illinois,
were kept in part by anti-slavery settlers from the South.
It is a fact worthy of record in this connection that the
teachings of the two sects, the Scotch Covenanters and the
Wesleyan Methodists, did not exclude the negro from the bonds
of Christian brotherhood, and where churches of either de-
nomination existed the Road was likely to be found in active
operation. Within the borders of Logan County, Ohio, there
were a number of Covenanter homes that received fugitives ;
and in southern Illinois, between the towns of Chester and
Centralia, there was a series of such hospitable places.
There were several Wesleyan Methodist stations in Harrison
County, Ohio, and with these were intermixed a few of the
Covenanter denomination.
It was natural that negro settlements in the free states
should be resorted to by fugitive slaves. The colored people
of Greenwich, New Jersey, the Stewart Settlement of Jack-
son County, Ohio, the Upper and Lower Camps, Brown
County, Ohio, and the Colored Settlement, Hamilton County,
Indiana, were active. The list of towns and cities in which
negroes became coworkers with white persons in harboring
and concealing runaways is a long one. Oberlin, Ports-
mouth and Cincinnati, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, Philadel-
phia, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts, will suffice
as examples.
The principles and experience gained by a number of stu-
1 History of Brown County, Ohio, p. 313 et seq. Also letter of Dr. Isaac
M. Beck, Sardinia, O., Dec. 26, 1892. Mr. Beck was born in 1807, and
knew personally the clergymen named. He joined tlie abolition movement
in 18.35. His excellent letter is verified in various points by other corre-
spondents.
ORIGIN OF THE UNDERGROTJND MOVEMENT 33
dents while attending college in Oberlin did not come amiss
later when these young men established themselves in Iowa.
Professor L. F. Parker, after describing what was probably
the longest line of travel through Iowa for escaped slaves,
says : " Along this line Quakers and Oberlin students were
the chief namable groups whose houses were open to such
travellers more certainly than to white men," ^ and the R»v.
William M. Brooks, a graduate of Oberlin, until recently
President of Tabor College, writes: "The stations ... in
southwestern Iowa were in the region of Civil Bend, where
the colony from Oberlin, Ohio, settled which afterwards
settled Tabor." 2
The origin of the Underground Road dates farther back
than is generally known ; though, to be sure, the different
divisions of the Road were not contemporary in development.
Two letters of George Washington, written in 1786, give the
first reports, as yet known, of systematic efforts for the aid
and protection of fugitive slaves. One of these letters bears
the date May 12, and the other, November 20. In the
former, Washington speaks of the slave of a certain Mr.
Dalby residing at Alexandria, who has escaped to Philadel-
phia, and " whom a society of Quakers in the city, formed
for such purposes, have attempted to liberate."^ In the
latter he writes of a slave whom he sent " under the care of
a trusty overseer" to the Hon. William Drayton, but who
afterwards escaped. He says : " The gentleman to whose
care I sent him has promised every endeavor to apprehend
him, but it is not easy to do this, when there are numbers
who would rather facilitate the escape of slaves than appre-
hend them when runaways." * The difficulties attending the
pursuit of the Drayton slave, like those in the other case
mentioned, seem to have been associated in Washington's
mind with the procedure of certain citizens of Pennsylvania;
it is quite possible that he was again referring to the Quaker
•
• Letter from Professor L. F. Parker, Grinnell, Iowa, Aug. 30, 1894.
" Letter from President W. M. Brooks, Tabor, Iowa, Oct. 11, 1894.
» Sparks's Washington, IX, 158, quoted in Quakers of Fennsylvania, by
Dr. A. C. Applegar,th, Johns Hopkins Studies, X, p. 463.
* Lunt, Origin of the Late War, Vol. I, p. 20.
34 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
society in Philadelphia. However that may be, it appears
probable that the record of Philadelphia as a centre of active
sympathy with the fugitive slave was continuous from the
time of Washington's letters. In 1787 Isaac T. Hopper,
who soon became known as a friend of slaves, settled in
Philadelphia, and, although only sixteen or seventeen years
old, had already taken a resolution to befriend the oppressed
Africans.^ Some cases of kidnapping that occurred in Co-
lumbia, Pennsylvania, in 1804, stirred the citizens of that
town to intervention in the runaways' behalf; and the move-
ment seems to have spread rapidly among the Quakers of
Chester, Lancaster, York, Montgomery, Berks and Bucks
counties.2 New Jersey was probably not behind southeast-
ern Pennsylvania in point of time in Underground Railroad
work. This is to be inferred from the fact that the adjacent
parts of the two states were largely settled by people of a
sect distinctly opposed to slavery, and were knitted together
by those ties of blood that are known to have been favorable
in other quarters to the development of underground routes.
That protection was given to fugitives early in the present
century by the Quakers of southwestern New Jersey can
scarcely be doubted ; and we are told that negroes were
being transported through New Jersey before 1818.^ New
York was closely allied with the New Jersey and Philadel-
phia centres as far back as our meagre records will permit us
to go. Isaac T. Hopper, who had grown familiar with un-
derground methods of procedure in Philadelphia, moved to
New York in 1829. No doubt his philanthropic arts were
soon made use of there, for in 1835 we find him accused,
1 L. Maria Child, Life of Isaac T. Hopper, 1854, p. 35.
2 History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, R. C. Smedley's article on the
"Underground Railroad," p. 426; also Smedley, Underground Bailroad,
p. 26.
8 The Rev. Thomas C. Oliver, born and raised in Salem, N.J., says that
the work of the Underground Railroad was going on before he was horn,
(1818) and continued until the time of the War. Mr. Oliver was raised in
the family of Thomas Clement, a member of the Society of Friends. He
graduated from the Prhiceton Theological Seminary in 1856. As a youth he
began to take part in rescues. Although seventy-five years old when visited
by the author, he was vigorous in body and mind, and seemed to have a
remarkably clear memory.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNDERGROUND SYSTEM 35
though falsely this time, of harboring a runaway at his store
in Pearl Street.^ Frederick Douglass mentions the assistance
rendered by Mr. Hopper to fugitives in New York; and
says that he himself received aid from David Ruggles, a
colored man and coworker with tlie venerable Quaker .^
After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, New
York City became more active tlian ever in receiving and
forwarding refugees.^ This city at the mouth of the Hud-
son was the entrep6t for a line of travel by way of Albany,
Syracuse and Rochester to Canada, and for another line di-
verging at Albany, and extending by the way of Troy to the
New England states and Canada ; and these routes appear
to have been used at an early date. The Elmira route,
which connected Philadelphia with Niagara Falls by way of
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was made use of from about 1850
to 1860. Its comparatively late development is explained
by the fact that one of its principal agents was a fugitive
slave, John W. Jones, who did not settle in Elmira until
1844, and that the line of the Northern Central Railroad was
not completed until about 1850.* In western New York
fugitives began to arrive from the neighboring parts of Penn-
sylvania and Ohio between 1835 and 1840, if not earlier.
Professor Edward Orton recalls that in 1838, soon after his
father moved to Buffalo, two sleigh-loads of negroes from
the Western Reserve were brought to the house in the
night-time ; ^ and Mr. Frederick Nicholson, of Warsaw, New
York, states that the underground work in his vicinity began
in 1840. From this time on there was apparently no cessa-
1 L. Maria Child, Life of Isaac T. Hopper, p. 316.
^History of Florence, llass., p. 131, Charles A. Shefleld, Editor.
3 The Underground Road was active in Xew York City at a much earlier
date certainly than Lossing gives. He says, " After the Fugitive Slave Lavf,
the Underground Railroad was established, and the city of New York became
one of the most important stations on the road." History of New York,
Vol. n, p. 655.
* Letter of Mrs. Susan L. Crane, Elmira, Sept. 14, 1896. Mrs. Crane's
father, Mr. Jervis Langdon, was active in underground work at Elmira, and
had a trusted co-laborer in John W. Jones, who still lives in Elmira.
^ Conversation with Professor Orton, Ohio State University, Columbus, O.,
1893.
36 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
tion of migrations of fugitives into Canada at Black Rock,
Buffalo and other points.^
The remoteness of New England from the slave states did
not prevent its sharing in the business of helping blacks to
Canada. In Vermont, which seems to have received fugitives
from the Troy line of eastern New York, the period of activ-
ity began " in the latter part of the twenties of this century,
and lasted till the time of the Rebellion." ^ In New Hamp-
shire there was a station at Canaan after 1830, and probably
before that time.^ The Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, of Chelsea,
Massachusetts, personally conducted a fugitive on two occa-
sions from Concord, New Hampshire, to his uncle's at Canter-
bury, in the same state " most probably in 1838 or 1839." *
This thing once begun in New Hampshire seems to have con-
tinued steadily during the decades until the War of the Re-
bellion.^ As regards Connecticut the Rev. Samuel J. May
states that as long ago as 1834 slaves were addressed to his
care while he was living in the eastern part of the state.^ In
Massachusetts the town of Fall River became an important
station in 1839.^ New Bedford, Boston, Marblehead, Concord,
Springfield, Florence and other places in Massachusetts are
known to have given shelter to fugitives as they travelled
northward. Mr. Simeon Dodge, of Marblehead, who had per-
1 For cases of arrivals of escaped slaves over some of the vrestem New
York branches, see Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad, by
Eber M. Pettit, 1879. These sketches were first published in the Fredonia
Censor, the series closing Nov. 18, 1868.
2 Letter of Mr. Aldis O. Brainerd, St. Albans, Vt., Oct. 21, 1895.
' Letter of Mr. Charles E. Lord, Franklin, Pa., July 6, 1896 : " My ma-
ternal grandfather, James Furber, lived for several years in Canaan, N. H.,
where his house was one of the stations of the Underground Railway. His
father-in-law, James Harris, who lived in the same house, had been engaged
in helping fugitive negroes on toward Canada ever since 1830, and probably
before that time."
* Letter of Judge Mellen Chamberlain, Chelsea, Mass., Feb. 1, 1896.
6 Letter of Mr. Thomas P. Cheney, Ashland, N.H., March 30, 1896.
^ Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 297.
' Elizabeth Buffum Chace, Anti-Slavery Reminiscences, p. 27. Mrs.
Chace says: "From the time of the arrival of James Curry at Fall River,
and his departure for Canada, in 1839, that town became an important station
on the so-called Underground Railroad." The residence of Mrs. Chace was
a place of refuge from the year named.
ITS SPREAD m OHIO 37
8onal knowledge of what was going on, recollects that the
Underground Road was active between 1840 and 1860, and
his testimony is substantiated by that of a number of other
persons.^ Doubtless there was underground work going on
in Massachusetts before this period, but it was probably of a
less systematic character. In Maine fugitives frequently ob-
tained help in the early forties. The Rev. O. B. Cheney,
later President of Bates College, was concerned in a branch
of the Road running from Portland to Effingham, New Hamp-
shire, and northward, during the years 1843 to 1845.^ That
later conditions probably increased the labors of the Maine
abolitionists appears from the statement of Mr. Brown
Thurston, of Portland, that he had at one time after the pas-
sage of the second Fugitive Slave Law the care of thirty
fugitives.^
Considering the geographical situation of Ohio and western
Pennsylvania, the period of their settlement, and the character
of many of their pioneers, it is not strange that this work
should have become established in this region earlier than in
the other free states along the Ohio River. The years 1815
to 1817 witnessed, so far as we now know, the origin of under-
ground lines in both the eastern and western parts of this
section. Henry Wilson explains this by saying that soldiers
from Virginia and Kentucky, returning home after the War
of 1812, carried back the news that there was a land of free-
dom beyond the lakes. John Sloane, of Ravenna, David Hud-
son, the founder of the town of Hudson, and Owen Brown,
the father of John Brown of Osawattomie, were among the
first of those known to have harbored slaves in the eastern
part.* Edward Howard, the father of Colonel D. W. H.
Howard, of Wauseon, and the Ottawa Indians of the village
of Chief Kinjeino were among the earliest friends of fugitives
1 Concerning Springfield, Mass. see Mason A. Green's History of Spring-
field, pp. 470, 471. For the sentiment of New Bedford, see Ellis's History of
New Bedford, pp. 306, 307.
2 Letter of the Rev. O. B. Cheney, Pawtuxet, R.I., Apr. 8, 1896.
» Letter of Mr. Brown Thurston, Portland, Me., Oct. 21, 1895.
* Wilson, Hise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. II, p. 63 ; Alexander
Black, The Story of Ohio, see account of the Underground Railroad.
38 UNDEBGROUND KAILKOAD
in the western part.^ At least one case of underground pro-
cedure is reported to have occurred in central Ohio as early
as 1812. The report is but one remove from its original
source, and was given to Mr. Robert McCrory, of Marysville,
Ohio, by Richard Dixoji, an eye-witness. The alleged run-
away, seized at Delaware, was unceremoniously taken from
the custody of his mounted captor when the two reached
Worthington, and was brought before Colonel James Kil-
bourne, who served as an official of all work in the village
he had founded but a few years before. By Mr. Kilbourne's
decision, the negro was released, and was then sent north
aboard one of the government wagons engaged at the time in
carrying military supplies to Sandusky.^ That such action
was not inconsistent with the character of Colonel Kilbourne
and his New England associates is evidenced by the fact that
as an agent for " The Scioto Company," formed in Granby,
Connecticut, in the winter of 1801-1802, he had delayed the
purchase of a township in Ohio for settlement until a state
constitution forbidding slavery should be adopted.^ If now
the testimony of the oldest surviving abolitionists from the
different regions of the state be compared, some interest-
ing results may be found. Job jMuUin, a Quaker of War-
ren County, in his eighty-ninth year when his statement
was given, says : " The most active time to my knowledge
was from 1816 to 1830. . . ." In 1829 Mr. MuUin
moved off the line with which he had been connected and
took no further part in the work.* Mr. Eliakim H. Moore,
for a number of years the treasurer of Ohio University
at Athens, says that . the work began near Athens during
1823 and 182-1. " In those years not so many attempted to
escape as later, from 1845 to 1860." ^ Dr. Thomas Cowgill,
an aged Quaker of Kennard, Champaign County, recollects
that the work of the Underground Railroad began in his
1 Letter of Col. D. W. H. Howard, "Wauseon, O., Aug. 22, 1894.
2 Conversation wUh Robert McCrory, Maiysville, 0., Sept. 30, 1898. Mr.
McCrory was educated at Oberlin College, and has an excellent memory.
8 Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. I, p. 614.
* Letter from Job MuUin, dictated to his son-in-law, W. H. Newport, at
Springboro, 0., Sept. 9, 1895.
* Conversation with Mr. Eliakim H. Moore, Athens, O.
ITS SPREAD IN OHIO 39
neighborhood about 1824. The time between 1840 and the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law he regards as the period of
greatest activity within his experience. Joseph Skillgess, a
colored citizen of Urbana, now seventy-six years old, says that
it is among his earliest recollections that runaways were en-
tertained at Dry Run Church, in Ross County .^ William A.
Johnston, an old resident of Coshocton, testifies : " We had
such a road here as early as the twenties, I know from tradi-
tion and personal observation." ^ Mahlon Pickrell, a promi-
nent Quaker of Logan County, writes : " There was some travel
on the Underground Railroad as early as 1820, but the period of
greatest activity in this vicinity was between 1840 and 1850."^
Finally, Mr. R. C. Corwin, of Lebanon, writes : " My first recol-
lection of the business dates back to about 1820, when I remem-
ber seeing fugitives at my father's house, though I dare say it
had been going on long before that time. From that time
until 1840 there was a gradual increase of business. From
1840 to 1860 might be called the period of greatest activity."*
Among these aged witnesses, those have been quoted whose
experience, character and clearness of mind gave weight to
their words. Mr. Rush R. Sloane, of Sandusky, who made
some local investigations in northwestern Ohio and published
the results in 1888, produces some evidence that agrees with
the testimony just given. He found that, " The first runaway
slave known as such at Sandusky was there in the fall of the
year 1820. . . . Judge Jabez Wright, one of the three associate
judges who held the first term of court in Huron County in
1815, was among the first white men upon the Firelands to
aid fugitive slaves ; he never failed when opportunity offered
to lend a helping hand to the fugitives, secreting them when
necessary, feeding them when they were hungry, clothing and
employing them." ^ After reciting a number of instances of
rescues occurring between 1820 and 1850, Mr. Sloane remarks
1 Conversation with Joseph Skillgess, Urbana, O., Aug. 14, 1894.
2 Letter of Wm. A. Johnston, Coshocton, 0., Aug. 23, 1894.
' Letter of Hannah W. Blackburn, for her father, Mahlon Pickrell, Zanes-
fleld, 0., March 25, 1893.
« Letter of R. C. Corwin, Lebanon, 0., Sept. 11, 1895.
5 The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 34.
40 XINDERGROUND RAILROAD
that one of the immediate results of the passage of the second
Fugitive Slave Law was the increased travel of fugitives
through the State of Ohio.^ The foregoing items have heen
brought together to show that there was no break in the busi-
ness of the Road from the beginning to the end. The death or
the change of residence of abolitionists may have interrupted
travel on one or another route, and may even have broken a
line permanently, but the history of the Underground Railroad
system in Ohio is continuous.
In North Carolina underground methods are known to
have been employed by white persons of respectability as
early as 1819. We are informed that " Vestal Coffin organ-
ized the Underground Railroad near the present Guilford
College in 1819. Addison Coffin, his son, entered its service
as a conductor in early youth and still survives in hale old
age. . . . Vestal's cousin, Levi Coffin, became an anti-
slavery apostle in early youth and continued unflinching to
the end. His early years were spent in North Carolina,
whence he helped many slaves to reach the West." ^ Levi
Coffin removed to Indiana in 1826. Of his own and his
cousin's activities in behalf of slaves while still a resident of
North Carolina, Mr. Coffin writes: "Runaway slaves used
frequently to conceal themselves in the woods and thickets
of New Garden, waiting opportunities to make their escape
to the North, and I generally learned their places of conceal-
ment and rendered them all the service in my power. . . .
These outlying slaves knew where I lived, and, when re-
duced to extremity of want or danger, often came to my
room, in the silence and darkness of the night, to obtain
food or assistance. In my efforts to aid these fugitives I
had a zealous coworker in my friend and cousin Vestal
Coffin, who was then, and continued to the time of his death
— a few years later — a staunch friend to the slave." ^ When
Levi Coffin emigrated in 1826 to southeastern Indiana, he
did not give up his active interest in the fleeing slave, and
his house at Newport (now Fountain City) became a centre
1 The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 34 et seq.
2 Stephen B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 242.
^ Beminiscences of Levi Coffin, 2(i ed., pp. 20, 21.
EARLY ACTIVITIES IN ILLINOIS 41
at which three distinct lines of Underground Road con-
verged. It is probable, however, that wayfarers from bond-
age found aid from pioneer settlers in Indiana before Friend
Cof&n's arrival. John F. Williams, of Economy, Indiana,
says that fugitives " commenced coming in 1820," and he
denominated himself " an agent since 1820," although he
"never kept a depot till 1852." ^ It is scarcely necessary
to make a showing of testimony to prove that an expansion
of routes like that taking place in Ohio and states farther
east occurred also in Indiana. /
It is doubtful at what time stations first came to exist in
Illinois. Mr. H. B. Leeper, an old resident of that state,
assigns their origin to the years 1819 and 1820, at which
time a small colony of anti-slavery people from Brown
County, Ohio, settled in Bond County, southern Illinois.
Emigrations from this locality to Putnam County, about
1830, led, he thinks, to the establishment there of a new
centre for this work. These settlers were persons that had
left South Carolina on account of slavery, and during their
residence in Brown County, Ohio, had accepted the aboli-
tionist views of the Rev. James Gilliland, a Presbyterian
preacher of Red Oak; and in Illinois they did not shrink
from putting their principles into practice. This account is
plausible, and as it is substantiated in certain parts by facts
from the history of Brown County, Ohio, it may be con-
sidered probable in those parts that are and must remain
without corroboration. ' Concerning his father Mr. Leeper
writes: "John Leeper moved from Marshall County, Ten-
nessee, to Bond County, Illinois, in 1816. Was a hater of
slavery. . . . Remained in Bond County until 1823, then
moved to Jacksonville, Morgan County, and in 1831 to Put-
nam County, and in 1833 to Bureau County, Illinois. . . .
My father's house was always a hiding-place for the fugitive
1 Letter from John F. Williams, Economy, Ind., March 21, 1893. When
this letter was written, Mr. Williams was eighty -one years old. He was, he
says, bom in 1812. In 1820 he would have been eight years old. Children
were sometimes sent to carry food to refugees in hiding, or to do other little
services with which they could he safely trusted. Such experiences were
apt to make deep impressions on their young memories.
42 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
from slavery." ^ On the basis of this testimony, and the
probability in the case, we may believe that the underground
movement in Illinois dates back, at least, to the time of the
admission of Illinois into the Union, that is, to 1818. Soon
after 1835, the movement seems to have become well estab-
lished, and to have increased in importance with considerable
rapidity till the War.
It is a fact worthy of note that the years that witnessed
the beginnings in Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina and Illinois
of this curious method of assailing the slave power, precede
but slightly those that witnessed the formulation of three
several bills in Congress designed to strengthen the first
Fugitive Slave Law. The three measures were drafted dur-
ing the interval from 1818 to 1822.
The abolitionist enterprises of the more western states,
Iowa and Kansas, came too late to be in any way connected
with the proposal of these bills. The settlement of these
territories was, of course, considerably behind that of Ohio,
Indiana and Illinois, but the nearness of the new regions to
a slaveholding section insured the opportunity for Under-
ground Railroad work as soon as settlement should begin.
Professor L. F. Parker, of Tabor College, Iowa, has sketched
briefly the successive steps in the opening of his state to
occupancy. "The Black-Hawk Purchase opened the eastern
edge of Iowa to the depth of 40 or 60 miles to the whites
in 1833. The strip . . . west of that which included what
is now Grinnell was not opened to white occupancy till 1843,
and it was ten years later before the white residents in this
county numbered 500. Grinnell was settled in 1854, when
central and western Iowa was merely dotted by a few hamlets
of white men, and seamed by winding paths along prairie
ridges and through bridgeless streams." ^ One of the early
settlers in southeastern Iowa was J. H. B. Armstrong, who
had been familiar with the midnight appeals of escaping
1 Letter from H. B. Leeper, Princeton, 111., received Dec. 19, 1895. Mr.
Leeper is seventy-five years of age. His letter shows a knowledge of the
localities of which he writes, Bond County in southwestern Illinois, and
Bureau and Putnam Counties in the central part of the state.
2 Letter from Professor L. E. Parker, Grinnell, Iowa, Aug. 30, 1894.
OPERATIONS IN IOWA 43
slaves in Fayette County, Ohio. Mr. Armstrong removed
to the West in 1839, and settled in Lee County, Iowa. His
proximity to the northeastern boundary of Missouri seems to
have involved him in Underground Railroad work from the
start, on the route running to Salem and Denmark. When
in 1852 Mr. Armstrong moved to Appanoose County, and
located within four miles of the Missouri line, among a
number of abolitionists, he found himself even more con-
cerned with secret projects to help slaves to Canada. The
lines of travel of fugitive slaves that extended east through-
out the entire length of Iowa were more or less associated
with Kansas men and Kansas movements, and their develop-
ment is, therefore, to be assigned to the time of the outbreak
of the struggle over Kansas (1854). Residents of Tabor in
southwestern Iowa, and of Grinnell in central Iowa, agree
in designating 1854 as the year in which their Underground
Railroad labors began. The Rev. John Todd, one of the
founders of the college colony of Tabor, is authority for the
statement that the first fugitives arrived in the summer of
1854.1 Professor Parker states that Grinnell was a stopping-
place for the hunted slave from the time of its founding in
1854.
We may summarize our findings in regard to the expansion
of the Underground Railroad, then, by saying that it had
grown into a wide-spread " institution " before the year 1840,
and in several states it had existed in previous decades. This
statement coincides with the findings of Dr. Samuel G. Howe
in Canada, while on a tour of investigation in 1863. He re-
ports that the arrivals of runaway slaves in the provinces,
at first rare, increased early in the century ; that some of the
fugitives, rejoicing in the personal freedom they had gained
and banishing all fear of the perils they must endure, went
stealthily back to their former homes and brought away their
wives and children. The Underground Road was of great
assistance to these and other escaping slaves, and " hundreds,"
1 Letter from Professor James E. Todd, Vermillion, South Dakota,
Nov. 6, 1894. Professor Todd is the son of the Rev. John Todd.
The Tahor Beacon, 1890, 1891, contains a series of reminiscences from the
pen of the Rev. John Todd. The first of these recounts the first arrival of
fugitives in July, 1854. ,
44 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
says Dr. Howe, " trod this path every year, but they did not
attract much public attention."^ It does not escape Dr.
Howe's consideration, however, that the fugitive slaves in
Canada were soon brought to public notice by the diplomatic
negotiations between England and the United States during
the years 1826-1828, the object being, as Mr. Clay, the Secre-
tary of State, himself declared, "to provide for a growing
evil." The evidence gathered from surviving abolitionists
in the states adjacent to the lakes shows an increased activity
of the Underground Road during the period 1830-1840. The
reason for flight given by the slave was, in the great majority
of cases, the same, namely, fear of being sold to the far South.
It is certainly significant in this connection that the decade
above mentioned witnessed the removal of the Indians from
the Gulf states, and, in the words of another contemporary
observer and reporter, " the consequent opening of new and
— vast cotton fields."^ The swelling emphasis laid upon the
value of their escaped slaves by the Southern representatives
in Congress, and by the South generally, resounded with
terrific force at length in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
That act did not, as it appears, check or diminish in any way
the number of underground rescues. In spite of the exhibit
on fugitive slaves made in the United States census report
of 1860, which purports to show that the number of escapes
was about a thousand a year, it is difficult to doubt the con-
sensus of testimony of many underground agents, to the effect
that the decade from 1850 to 1860 was the period of the
Road's greatest activity in all sections of the North.^
It is not known when the name " Underground Railroad "
came to be applied to these secret trails, nor where it was
first applied to them. According to Mr. Smedley the designa-
tion came into use among slave-hunters in the neighborhood
of Columbia soon after the Quakers in southeastern Penn-
1 S. G. Howe, The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, 1864, pages
11, 12.
2 G. M. Weston, Progress of Slavery in the United States, Washington,
D.C., 1858, p. 22.
3 Some conclusions presented in the American Historical Review, April,
1896, pp. 460-462, are here repeated.
NAMING OF THE ROAD 45
sylvania began their concerted action in harboring and for-
warding fugitives. The pursuers seem to have had little
difficulty in tracking slaves as far as Columbia, but beyond
that point all trace of them was generally lost. All the
various methods of detection customary in such cases were
resorted to, but failed to bring the runaways to view. The
mystery enshrouding these disappearances completely bewil-
dered and baffled the slave-owners and their agents, who are
said to have declared, " there must be an Underground Rail- U--
road somewhere." ^ As this work reached considerable de-
velopment in the district indicated during the first decade
of this century the account quoted is seen to contain an
anachronism. Railroads were not known either in England
or the United States until about 1830, so that the word
" railroad " could scarcely have received its figurative appli-
cation as early as Mr. Smedley implies.
The Hon. Rush R. Sloane, of Sandusky, Ohio, gives the
following account of the naming of the Road: "In the
year 1831, a fugitive named Tice Davids came over the line
and lived just back of Sandusky. He had come direct from
Ripley, Ohio, where he crossed the Ohio River. . . .
" When he was running away, his master, a Kentuckian, was
in close pursuit and pressing him so hard that when the Ohio
River was reached he had no alternative but to jump in and
swim across. It took his master some time to secure a skiff,
in which he and his aid followed the swimming fugitive,
keeping him in sight until he had landed. Once on shore,
however, the master could not find him. No one had seen
him ; and after a long . . . search the disappointed slave-master
went into Ripley, and when inquired of as to what had be-
come of his slave, said ... he thought ' the nigger must have
gone off on an underground road.' The story was repeated
with a good deal of amusement, and this incident gave the
name to the line. First the ' Underground Road,' after- '
wards ' Underground Railroad.' " ^ A colored man, the Rev.
W. M. Mitchell, who was for several years a resident of
1 R. C. Smedley, Underground Bailroad, pp. 34, 35.
» The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 35.
46 UNDERGEOUND RAILROAD
southern Ohio, and a friend of fugitives, gives what appears
to be a version of Mr. Sloane's story.i These anecdotes are
hardly more than traditions, affording a fair general explana-
tion of the way in which the Underground Railroad got its
name; but they cannot be trusted in the details of time,
place and occasion. Whatever the manner and date of its
suggestion, the designation was generally accepted as an apt
title for a mysterious means of transporting fugitive slaves
to Canada.
1 The Underground Sailroad, pp. 4, 5.
A CROSSING PLACE FOK FUGITIVE SLAVES ON THE OHIO RIVER,
AT STEUBENVILLE, OHIO.
(From a recent photograph.)
HOUSE OF THE REV. JOHN RANKIN, RIPLEY, OHIO.
Situated on the top o£ a high hill, this initial station was readily found by runaways
from the Kentucky shore opposite.
(From a recent photograph.)
CHAPTER III
THB METHODS OF THE UNDEEGBOUND RAILBOAD
By the enactment of the first Fugitive Slave Law, February
12, 1793, the aiding of fugitive slaves became a penal offence.
This measure laid a fine of five hundred dollars upon any one
harboring escaped slaves, or preventing their arrest. The pro-
visions of the law were of a character to stimulate resistance to
its enforcement. The master or his agent was authorized to
arrest the runaway, wherever found ; to bring him before a
judge of the circuit or the district court of the United States,
or before a local magistrate where the capture was made;
and to receive, on the display of satisfactory proof, a certifi-
cate operating as a full warrant for taking the prisoner back
to the state from which he had fled. This summary method
of disposing of cases involving the high question of human
liberty was regarded by many persons as unjust ; they freely
denounced it, and, despite the penalty attached, many violated
the law. Secrecy was the only safeguard of these persons,
as it was of those they were attempting to succor; hence
arose the numerous artifices employed.
The uniform success of the attempts to evade this first
Fugitive Slave Law, and doubtless, also, the general indisposi-
tion of Northern people to take part in the return of refugees
to their Southern owners, led, as early as in 1823, to negotia-
tions between Kentucky and the three adjoining states across
the Ohio. It is unnecessary to trace the history of these
negotiations, or to point out the statutes in which the legis-
lative results are recorded. It is notable that sixteen years
elapsed before the legislature of Ohio passed a law to secure
the recovery of slave property, and that the new enactment
remained on the statute books only four years. The pen-
alties imposed by this law for advising or for enticing a slave
47
48 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
to leave his master, or for harboring a fugitive, were a fine,
not to exceed five hundred dollars, and, at the discretion of
the court, imprisonment not to exceed sixty days. In addi-
tion, the offender was to be liable in an action at the suit of
the party injured.^ It can scarcely be supposed that a state
Fugitive Slave Law like this would otherwise affect persons
that were already engaged in aiding runaways than to make
them more certain than ever that their cause was just.
The loss of slave property sustained by Southern planters
was not diminished, and the outcry of the South for a more
rigorous national law on the subject was by no means hushed.
In 1850 Congress met the case by substituting for the Fugitive
Slave Act of 1793 the measure called the second Fugitive Slave
Law. The penalties provided by this law were, of course,
more severe than those of the act of 1793. Any person hin-
dering the claimant from arresting the fugitive, or attempting
the rescue or concealment of the fugitive, became " subject to
a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment
not exceeding six months," and was liable for " civil damages
to the party injured by such illegal conduct in the sum of one
thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost." These provisions
of the new law only added fresh fuel to the fire. The deter-
mination to prevent the recovery of escaped slaves by their
owners spread rapidly among the inhabitants of the free states.
Many of these persons, who had hitherto refrained from acting
for or against the fugitive, were provoked into helping defeat
the action of a law commanding them " to aid and assist in
the prompt and efficient execution " of a measure that would
have set them at the miserable business of slave-catching.
Clay only expressed a wish instead of a fact, when he main-
tained in 1851 that the law was being executed in Indiana,
Ohio and other states. Another Southern senator was much
nearer the truth when he complained of the small number of
recaptures under the recent act.
The risk of suffering severe penalties by violating the Fugi-
tive Slave laws was less wearing, probably, on abolitionists
than was the social disdain they brought upon themselves by
acknowledging their principles. During a generation or more
1 The date of the act is February 26, 1839.
ABUSE SUFFEEED BY ABOLITIONISTS 49
they were in a minority in many communities, and were forced
to submit to the taunts and insults of persons that did not
distinguish between abolition of slavery and fusion of the
white and the black races. " Black abolitionist," " niggerite,"
" amalgamationist " and " nigger thief " were convenient epi-
thets in the mouths of pro-slavery champions in many North-
ern neighborhoods. The statement was not uncommonly
made about those suspected of harboring slaves, that they
did so from motives of thrift and gain. It was said that some
underground helpers made use of the labor of runaways, espe-
cially in harvest-time, as long as it suited their convenience,
then on the pretext of danger hurried the negroes off without
pay. Unreasoning malice alone could concoct so absurd an
explanation of a philanthropy involving so much cost and
risk.i Abolitionists were often made uncomfortable in their
church relations by the uncomplimentary attentions they re-
ceived, or by the discovery that they were regarded as unwel-
come disturbers of the household of faith.^ Even the Society
of Friends is not above the charge of having lost sight, in
some quarters, of the precepts of Anthony Benezet and John
Woolman. Uxbridge monthly meeting is known to have dis-
owned Abby Kelly because she gave anti-slavery lectures.^
The church certificate given to Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace
when she transferred her membership from Swanzey monthly
meeting to Providence (Rhode Island) monthly meeting was
without the acknowledgment usually contained in such certi-
ficates that the bearer " was of orderly life and conversation." *
A popular Hicksite minister of New York City, in commend-
ing the fugitive Thomas Hughes for consenting to return South
vnth his master, said, " I had a thousand times rather be a
slave, and spend my days with slaveholders, than to dwell in
companionship with abolitionists." ^ In the Methodist Church
iSee an article entitled "An Underground Railway," by Eobert W.
Carroll, of Cincinnati, O., in the Cincinnati Times-Star, Aug. 19, 1890; also
Smedley, Underground Railroad, p. 182 ; and J. B. Robinson, Pictures of
Slavery and Anti-Slavery, pp. 293, 294.
2 Histoi-y of Henry County, Indiana, p. 126 et seq.
' Elizabeth BufEum Chace, Anti-Slavery Beminiscences, p. 19.
*76i(!.,p. 18.
5 Lydia Maria Child, Life of Isaac T. Hopper, pp. 388, 389.
50 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
there came to be such stress of feeling between the abolition-
ists and the other members, that in many places the former
withdrew and organized little congregations apart, under the
denominational name, Wesleyan Methodist. The truth is,
the mass of the people of the free states were by no means
abolitionists ; they cherished an intense prejudice against the
negro, and permitted it to extend to all anti-slavery advocates.
They were willing to let slavery alone, and desired that others
should let it alone. In the Western states the character of
public sentiment is evidenced by the fact that generally the
political party considered to be most favorable to slavery
could command a majority, and "black laws" were framed at
the behest of Southern politicians for the purpose of making
residence in the Northern states a disagreeable thing for the
negro.^
Abolitionists were frequently subjected to espionage ; the
arrival of a party of colored people at a house after daybreak
would arouse suspicion and cause the place to be closely
watched ; a chance meeting with a neighbor in the highway
would perhaps be the means by which some abolitionists'
secrets would become known. In such cases it did not always
follow that the discovery brought ruin upon the head of the
offender, even when the discoverer was a person of pro-slavery
views. Nevertheless, accidents of the kind described served
to fasten the suspicions of a locality upon the offender. Grav-
ner and Hannah Marsh, Quakers, living near Downington, in
Chester County, Pennsylvania, became known to their pro-
slavery neighbors as agents on the Underground Road. These
neighbors were not disposed to inform against them, although
one woman, intent on finding out how many slaves they aided
in a year, with much watching counted sixty .^ The Rev.
John Cross, a Presbyterian minister living in Elba Township,
Knox County, Illinois, about the year 1840, had neighbors
that insisted on his answering to the law for the help he gave
to some fugitives. Mr. Cross made no secret of his princi-
ples and accordingly became game for his enemies. One of
these was Jacob Kightlinger, who observed a wagon-load of
1 See President Fairohild's pamphlet, The Underground Sailroad.
2 Smedley, Underground Sailroad, p. 139.
ABOLITIONISTS UNDER SURVEILLANCE 51
negroes being taken in the direction of Mr. Cross's house. In-
vestigation by Mr. Kightlinger and several of his friends proved
tlieir suspicions to be true, and by their action Mr. Cross was
indicted for harboring fugitive slaves.^
Parties in pursuit of fugitives were compelled to make care-
ful and often long-continued search to find traces of their way-
faring chattels. During such missions they were, of course,
inquisitive and vigilant, and when circumstances seemed to
warrant it, they set men to watch the premises of the persons
most suspicioned, and to report any mysterious actions occur-
ring within the district patrolled. The houses of many noted
abolitionists along the Ohio River were frequently under the
surveillance of slave-hunters. It was not a rare thing that
towns and villages in regions adjacent to the Southern states
were terrorized by crowds of roughs eager to find the hiding-
places of slaves, recently missed by masters bent on their re-
covery. The following extracts from a letter written by Mr.
William Steel to Mr. David Putnam, Jr., of Point Harmar,
Ohio, will show the methods practised by slave-hunters when
in eager pursuit of fugitives : —
WooDSFiELD, Monroe Co., O.
Sept. 5, 1843.
Me. David Putnam, Je. :
Dear Sir, — I received yours of the 26th tilt, and was very glad
to hear from it that Stephen Quixot had such good luck in getting
his family from Virginia, but we began to be very uneasy about
them as we did not hear from them again until last Saturday, . . .
we then heard they were on the route leading through Summer-
field, but that the route from there to Somerton was so closely
watched both day and night for some time past on account of the .
human cattle that have lately escaped from Virginia, that they
could not proceed farther on that route. So we made an arrange-
ment with the Summerfield friends to meet them on Sunday even-
ing about ten miles west of this and bring them on to this
route . . . the abolitionists of the west part of this county have
had very difiicult work in getting them all off without being caught,
as the whole of that part of the country has been filled with
Southern blood hounds upon their track, and some of the aboli-
1 History of Knox County, HI., pp. 213, 214. Mr. Kightlinger's account
of this affair is published under his own name.
52 UNDEKGEOUND EAILKOAD
tionists' houses have been watched day and night for several days
in succession. This evening a company of eight Virginia hounds
passed through this place north on the hunt of some of their two-
legged chattels. . . . Since writing the above I have understood
that something near twenty Virginians including the eight above
mentioned have just passed through town on their way to the
Somerton neighborhood, but I do not think they will get much in-
formation about their lost chattels there. . . .
Yours for the Slave,
William Steel.^
A case that well illustrates the method of search employed
by pursuing parties is that of the escape of the Nuckolls slaves
through Iowa, the incidents of which are still vivid in the
memories of some that witnessed them. Mr. Nuckolls, of
Nebraska City, Nebraska, lost two slave-girls in December,
1858. He instituted search for them in Tabor, an abolition-
ist centre, and did not neglect to guard the crossings of two
streams in the vicinity. Silver Creek and the Nishnabotna
River. As the slaves had been promptly despatched to Chi-
cago, this search availed him nothing. A second and more
thorough hunt was decided on, and the aid of a score or
more fellows was secured. These men made entrance into
houses by force and violence, when bravado failed to gain
them admission.^ At one house where the remonstrance
against intrusion was unusually strong the person remonstrat-
ing was struck over the head and injured for life. The out-
come of the whole affair was that Mr. Nuckolls had some ten
thousand dollars to pay in damages and costs, and, after all,
failed to recover his slaves.*
Many were the inducements to practise espionage on aboli-
tionists. Large sums were offered for the capture of fugi-
tives, and rewards were offered also for the arrest and delivery
1 The original letter is in the possession of the author of this hook.
2 The Tahor Beacon, 1890, 1891, Chapter XXI of a series of articles hy
the Rev. John Todd, on "The Early Settlement and Growth of Western
Iowa." Mr. Todd was one of the early settlers of western Iowa. The
letters were received from his son, Professor James E. Todd, of the Uni-
versity of South Dakota, Vermillion, S. Dak.
» Letter of Mr. Sturgis Williams, Percival, la. , 1894. Mr. Williams was
also one of the pioneers of western Iowa.
REWAKDS FOR ABDUCTION OP ABOLITIONISTS 53
south of Mason and Dixon's line of certain abolitionists,
who were well-enough known to have the hatred of many-
Southerners. " At an anti-slavery meeting of the citizens of
Sardinia and vicinity, held on November 21, 1838, a committee
of respectable citizens presented a report, accompanied with
affidavits in support of its declarations, stating that for more
than a year past there had been an unusual degree of hatred
manifested by the slave-hunters and slaveholders towards the
abolitionists of Brown County, and that rewards varying from
1500 to $2,500 had been repeatedly offered by different per-
sons for the abduction or assassination of the Rev. John B.
Mahan ; and rewards had also been offered for Amos Petti-
john, William A. Frazier and Dr. Isaac M. Beck, of Sardinia,
the Rev. John Rankin and Dr. Alexander Campbell, of Rip-
ley, William McCoy, of RussellviUe, and citizens of Adams
County." ^ A resolution was offered in the Maryland Legis-
lature, in January, 1860, proposing a reward for the arrest of
Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, for "stealing" slaves.^ It is
perhaps an evidence of the extraordinary caution and shrewd-
ness employed by managers of the Road generally that so
many of them escaped without suffering the penalties of the
law or the inflictions of private vengeance.
Slave-owners occasionally tried to find out the secrets of an
underground station or of a route by visiting various localities
in disguise. A Kentucky slaveholder clad in the Friends'
peculiar garb went to the house of John Charles, a Quaker
of Richmond, Indiana, and meeting a son of Mr. Charles,
accosted him with the words, " Well, sir, my little mannie,
hasn't thee father gone to Canada with some niggers?"
Young Charles quickly perceived the disguise, and pointing
his finger at the man declared him to be a " wolf in sheep's
clothing." 3 About the year 1840 there came into Cass County,
Indiana, a man from Kentucky by the name of Carpenter,
who professed to be an anti-slavery lecturer and an agent for
^ Bistory of Brown County, Ohio, p. 314.
" The New Beign of Ten-or in the Slaveholding States, for 1859-1860
{Anti-Slavery Tracts, No. 4, New Series), pp. 49, 50.
8 Letter of Mrs. Mary C. Thome, Selma, Clark Co., 0., March 3, 1892.
John Charles was an uncle of Mrs. Thome.
54 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
certain anti-slavery papers. He visited the abolitionists and
seemed zealous in the cause. In this way he learned the
whereabouts of seven fugitives that had arrived in the neigh-
borhood from Kentucky a few weeks before. He sent word
to their masters, and in due time they were all seized, but had
not been taken far before the neighborhood was aroused,
masters and victims were overtaken and carried to the county-
seat, a trial was procured, and the slaves were again set free.
Thus the penalties of the law, the contempt of neighbors,
and the espionage of persons interested in returning fugitives
to bondage made secrecy necessary in the service of the
Underground Railroad.
Night was the only time, of course, in which the fugitive
and his helpers could feel themselves even partially secure.
Probably most slaves that started for Canada had learned to
know the north star, and to many of these superstitious per-
sons its light seemed the enduring witness of the divine inter-
est in their deliverance. When clouds obscured the stars
they had recourse, perhaps, to such bits of homely knowledge
as, that in forests the trunks of trees are commonly moss-
grown on their north sides. In Kentucky and western Vir-
ginia many fugitives were guided to free soil by the tributaries
of the Ohio ; while in central and eastern Virginia the ranges
of the Appalachian chain marked the direction to be taken.
YAfter reaching the initial station of some line of Underground
Road the fugitive found himself provided with such accom-
modations for rest and refreshment as circumstances would
allow ; and after an interval of a day or more he was con-
veyed, usually in the night, to the house of the next friend.
Sometimes, however, when a guide was thought to be un-
necessary the fugitive was sent on foot to the next station,
full and minute instructions for finding it having been given
him. The faltering step, and the light, uncertain rapping of
the fugitive at the door, was quickly recognized by the family
within, and the stranger was admitted with a welcome at once
sincere and subdued. There was a suppressed stir in the
house while the fire was building and food preparing ; and
after the hunger and chill of the wayfarer had been dispelled,
he was provided with a bed in some out-of-the-way part of the
MIDNIGHT SERVICE 55
house, or under the hay in the barn loft, according to the
degree of danger. Often a household was awakened to find
a company of five or more negroes at the door. The arrival
of such a company was sometimes announced beforehand by
special messenger.
That the amount of time taken from the hours of sleep by
underground service was no small item may be seen from the
following record covering the last half of August, 1843. The
record or memorandum is that of Mr. David Putnam, Jr., of
Point Harmar, Ohio, and is given with all the abbreviations :
Aug. 13/43 Sunday Morn.
2 o'clock arrived
Sunday Eve.
8i
' departed for B.
16
Wednesday Morn
. 2
arrived
20
Sunday eve.
10
' departed for N.
Wife & children 21
Monday morn.
2
arrived from B.
" eve.
10
' left for Mr. H.
22
Tuesday "
11
' left for W.
A. L. & S. J. 28
Monday morn.
1
' arrived left 2 o'clock.^
This is plainly a schedule of arriving and departing " trains "
on the Underground Road. It is noticeable that the schedule
contains no description, numerical or otherwise, of the parties
coming and going ; nor does it indicate, except by initial, to
what places or persons the parties were despatched ; further,
it does not indicate whether Mr. Putnam accompanied them
or not. It does, however, give us a clue to the amount
of night service that was done at a station of average activity
on the Ohio River as early as the year 1843. The demands
upon operators increased, we know, from this time on till
1860. The memorandum also shows the variation in the
length of time during which different companies of fugitives
were detained at a station; thus, the first fugitive, or com-
pany of fugitives, as the case may have been, departed on
the evening of the day of arrival ; the second party was kept
in concealment from Wednesday morning until the Sunday
night next following before it was sent on its way ; the third
1 The original memorandum is written in pencil on a letter received by
Mr. Putnam from Mr. Jolm Stone, of Belpre, O., in Aug., 1843. The con-
tents of this letter, or message, is given on page 57. The original is in posses-
sion of the author.
56 UNDEEGROUND RAILKOAD
party seems to have been divided, one section being forwarded
the night of the day of arrival, the other the next night fol-
lowing ; in the case of the last company there seems to have
existed some especial reason for haste, and we find it hurried
away at two o'clock in the morning, after only an hour's
intermission for rest and refreshment. The memorandum of
night service at the Putnam station may be regarded as fairly
representative of the night service at many other posts or
stations throughout Ohio and the adjoining states.
Much of the communication relating to fugitive slaves was
had in guarded language. Special signals, whispered conver-
sations, passwords, messages couched in figurative phrases,
were the common modes of conveying information about
underground passengers, or about parties in pursuit of fugi-
tives. These modes of communication constituted what abo-
litionists knew as the " grape-vine telegraph." ^ The signals
employed were of various kinds, and were local in usage.
Fugitives crossing the Ohio River in the vicinity of Parkers-
burg, in western Virginia, were sometimes announced at sta-
tions near the river by their guides by a shrill tremolo-call
like that of the owl. Colonel John Stone and Mr. David
Putnam, Jr., of Marietta, Ohio, made frequent use of this sig-
nal.2 Different neighborhoods had their peculiar combina-
tions of knocks or raps to be made upon the door or window
of a station when fugitives were awaiting admission. In
Harrison County, Ohio, around Cadiz, one of the recognized
signals was three distinct but subdued knocks. To the in-
1 The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 20 ; also letter of S. J. Wright,
Rushville, 0., Aug. 29, 1894, and letter of Ira Thomas, Springboro, 0., Oct.
29, 1895.
2 This owl signal was mentioned in conversation with several residents of
Marietta. Miss Martha Putnam says she has heard her father make the
"hoot-owl" call huudreds of times. General R. R. Dawes designates this
call tlie "river signal." "When I was a boy of eight," he says, "I was
visiting my grandfather, Judge Ephraim Cutler. The place was called Con-
stitution. Somehow, in the night I was wakened up, and a wagon came
down over the hill to the river. Then a call was given, a hoot-owl call, and
this was answered by a similar one from the other side ; then a boat went
out and brought over the crowd. My mother got out of bed and kneeled
down and prayed for them, and had me kneel with her." Conversation
with General Dawes, Marietta, O., Aug. 21, 1892.
MESSAGES
57
quiry, "Who's there?" the reply-
was, " A friend with friends." ^ Pass-
words were used on some sections of
the Road. The agents at York in
southeastern Pennsylvania made use
of them, and William Yokum, a con-
stable of the town, who was kindly
disposed towards runaways, was able
to be most helpful in times of emer-
gency by his knowledge of the watch-
words, one of which was "William
Penn." ^ Messages couched in figura-
tive language were often sent. The
following note, written by Mr. John
Stone, of Belpre, Ohio, in August,
184S, is a good example : —
Belpke Friday Morning
David Putk^am
Business is aranged for Saturday
night be on the lookout and if practi-
cable let a cariage come & meet the eara-
wan J S'
^
V.
Mr. I. Newton Peirce forwarded a
number of fugitives from Alliance,
Ohio, to Cleveland, over the Cleve-
land and Western Railroad. He sent
with each company a note to a Cleve-
land merchant, Mr. Joseph Garretson,
saying : " Please forward immediately
the U. G. baggage this day sent to
you. Yours truly, I. N. P."* Mr.
1 Letter of the Rev. J. B. Lee, Eranldinville,
N.T., Oct. 21, 1895.
2 Smedley, Underground Railroad, p. 46.
s See the facsimile.
* Letter of I. Newton Peirce, Folcroft,
Sharon Hill P.O., Delaware Co., Pa., Teh. 1,
1893.
58 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
G. W. Weston, of Low Moor, Iowa, was the author of similar
communications addressed to a friend, Mr. C. B. Campbell,
of Clinton.
Low MooE, May 6, 1859.
Mb. C. B. C,
Dear Sir : — By to-morrow evening's mail, you will receive two
volumes of the " Irrepressible Conflict " bound in black. After
perusal, please forward, and oblige,
Yours truly,
G. W. W.^
The Hon. Thomas Mitchell, founder of Mitchellville, near
Des Moines, Iowa, forwarded fugitives to Mr. J. B. Grinnell,
after whom the town of Grinnell was named. The latter
gives the following note as a sample of the messages that
passed between them : —
Dear Grinnell : — Uncle Tom says if the roads are not too bad
you can look for those fleeces of wool by to-morrow. Send them
on to test the market and price, no back charges.
Yours,
HUB.=
There were many persons engaged in underground work
that did not always take the precaution to veil their commu-
nications. Judge Thomas Lee, of the Western Reserve, was
one of this class, as the following letter to Mr. Putnam, of
Point Harmar, will show : —
Cadiz, Ohio, March 17th, 1847.
Me. David Putnam,
Dear Sir: — I understand you are a friend to the poor and
are willing to obey the heavenly mandate, " Hide the outcasts,
betray not him that wandereth." Believing this, and at the
request of Stephen Fairfax (who has been permitted in divine
providence to enjoy for a few days the kind of liberty which
Ohio gives to the man of colour), I would be glad if you could
find out and let me know by letter what are the prospects if any
''■History of Clinton County, Iowa, article on the "Underground Rail-
road," pp. 41.3-416.
2 J. B. Grinnell, Men and Events of Forty Years, p. 217.
CONVEYANCE OF FUGITIVES 59
and the probable time when, the balance of the family -will make
the same eifort to obtain their inalienable right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Their friends who have gone
north are very anxious to have them follow, as they think it
much better to work for eight or ten dollars per month than
to work for nothing.
Yours in behalf of the millions of poor, opprest and down-
trodden in our land.
Thomas Lee.
In the conveyance of fugitives from station to station
there existed all the variety of method one would expect to
find. In the early days of the Underground Road the fugi-
tives were generally men. It was scarcely thought neces-
sary to send a guide with them unless some special reason
for so doing existed. They were, therefore, commonly given
such directions as they needed and left to their own devices.
As the number of refugees increased, and women and chil-
dren were more frequently seen upon the Road, and pursuit
was more common, the practice of transporting fugitives on
horseback, or by vehicle, was introduced. The steam rail-
road was a new means furnished to abolitionists by the
progress of the times, and used by them with greater or less
frequency as circumstances required, and when the safety
of passengers would not be sacrificed. "~~
When fugitive travellers afoot or on horseback found
themselves pursued, safety lay in flight, unless indeed the
company was large enough, courageous enough, and suffi-
ciently well armed to give battle. The safety of fugitives
while travelling by conveyance lay mainly in their conceal-
ment, and many were the stratagems employed. /Character-
istic of the service of the Underground Railroad were the
covered wagons, closed carriages and deep-bedded farm-
wagons that hid the passengers. ^ There are those living
who remember special day-coaches of more peculiar con-
struction. Abram Allen, a Quaker of Oakland, Clinton
County, Ohio, had a large three-seated wagon, made for the
purpose of carrying fugitives. He called it the Liberator.
It was curtained all around, would hold eight or ten persons,
and had a mechanism with a bell, invented by Mr. Allen, to
60 UNDEKGKOUND RAILROAD
record the number of miles travelled.^,. A citizen of Troy,
Ohio, a bookbinder by trade, had a large wagon, built about
with drawers in such a way as to leave a large hiding-place
in the centre of the wagon-bed. As the bookbinder drove
through the country he found opportunity to help many a
fugitive on his way to Canada.^ ' Horace Holt, of Rutland,
Meigs County, Ohio, sold reeds to his neighbors in southern
Ohio. He had a box-bed wagon with a lid that fastened
with a padlock. In this he hauled his supply of reeds ; it
was well understood by a few that he also hauled fugitive
slaves.^ Joseph Sider, of southern Indiana, found his
pedler wagon well adapted to the transportation of slaves
from Kentucky plantations.* William Still gives instances
of negroes being placed in boxes, and shipped as freight by
boat, and also by rail, to friends in the North. William Box
Peel Jones was boxed in Baltimore and sent to Philadelphia
by way of the Ericsson line of steamers, being seventeen hours
on the way.^ Henry Box Brown had the same thrilling and
perilous experience. His trip consumed twenty-four hours,
during which time he was in the care of the Adams Express
Company in transit from Richmond, Virginia, to Phila-
delphia.^
Abolitionists that drove wagons or carriages containing
refugees, " conductors " as they came to be called in the
terminology of the Railroad service, generally took the pre-
caution to have ostensible reasons for their journeys. They
sought to divest their excursions of the air of mystery by
seeming to be about legitimate business. Hannah Marsh, of
Chester County, Pennsylvania, was in the habit of taking
1 Judge R. B. Harlan and others, History of Clinton County, Ohio, pp.
380-383 ; letter of Seth Linton, Oakland, Clinton County, 0., Sept. 4, 1892 ;
Smedley, Underground Railroad, p. 187.
^ The Miami Union, April 10, 1895, article entitled "A Reminiscence of
Slave Times."
^ Letter of Mrs. C. Grant, Pomeroy, Meigs Co., O.
* The Sepublican Leader, March 16, 1894, article, "Reminiscence of the
Underground Railroad," by E. H. Trueblood.
^ See Underground Bailroad Becords, pp. 46, 47.
^ Ibid. , pp. 81-84 ; see also Narrative of Henry Box Brown, who escaped
from slavery enclosed in a box 3 feet long and S wide, written from a state-
ment of facts made by himself, 1849, by Charles Stearns.
CONVEYANCE OF EUGITIVES 61
garden produce to the Philadelphia markets to sell ; when,
therefore, she sometimes used her covered market-wagon,
even in daytime, to convey fugitives, she attracted no atten-
tion, and made her trips without molestation.^ Calvin Fair-
bank abducted the Stanton family, father, mother and six
children, from the neighborhood of Covington, Kentucky, by
packing them in a load of straw.^ James W. Torrence, of
Northwood, Ohio, together with some of his neighbors ex-
ported grain, and sometimes feathers, to Sandusky. These
products were generally shipped when there were fugitives
to go with the load. As the distance to Sandusky was a
hundred and twenty miles, refugees who happened to profit
by this arrangement were saved much time and no small
amount of risk in getting to their destination.^ Mr. William
I. Bowditch, of Boston, used a two-horse carryall on one oc-
casion to take a single fugitive to Concord.* Mr. John
Weldon and other abolitionists, of Dwight, Illinois, took
negroes to Chicago concealed in wagons loaded with sacks of
bran.^ ''Levi Coffin, of Cincinnati, Ohio, frequently received
large companies for which safe transportation had to be sup-
plied. On one occasion a party of twenty-eight negroes ar-
rived, towards daylight, in the suburbs of Cincinnati, from
Boone County, Kentucky, and it was necessary to send them
on at once. Accordingly at Friend Coffin's suggestion a
number of carriages were procured, formed into a long
funeral-like procession and started solemnly on the road to
Cumminsville.® An almost endless array of incidents similar
to these can be given, but enough have been recited to illus-
trate the caution that prevailed in the transportation of
fugitive slaves toward Canada.
The routes were very far from being straight. They are
perhaps best described by the word zigzag. The exigencies
1 Smedley, Underground Bailroad, pp. 138, 139.
2 The Bev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times, pp. 24, 25 ; see also
the Chicago Tribune, Jan. 29, 1893, p. 33.
» Conversation with James W. Torrence, Northwood, Logan Co., O.,
Sept. 22, 1894.
1 Letter of William I. Bowditch, Boston, Mass., April 5, 1893.
6 Letter of John Weldon, Dwight, HI., Nov. 7, 1895.
6 History of Darke County, Ohio, p. 332 et seq.
62 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
that determined in what direction an escaping slave should go
during any particular part of his journey were, in the nature
of the case, always local. The ultimate goal was Canada,
but a safe passage was of greater importance than a quick
one. When speed would contribute safety the guide would
make a long trip with his charge, or perhaps resort to the
steam railroad ; but under ordinary circumstances, in those
regions where the Underground Railroad was most patron-
ized, a guide had almost always a choice between two or
more routes; he could, as seemed best at the time, take the
right-hand road to one station, or the left-hand road to
another. In truth, the underground paths in these regions
formed a great and intricate network, and it was in no small
measure because the lines forming the meshes of this great
system converged and branched again at so many stations
that it was almost an impossibility for slave-hunters to trace
their negroes through even a single county without finding
themselves on the wrong trail. It was a common stratagem
in times of special emergency to switch off travellers from
one course to another, or to take them back on their track
and then, after a few days of waiting, send them forward
again. It is, then, proper to say that zigzag was one of the
regular devices to blind and throw off pursuit. It served
moreover to avoid unfriendly localities. It seems probable
that the circuitous land route from Toledo to Detroit was an
expedient of this sort, for slave-owners and their agents were
often known to be on the lookout along the direct thorough-
fare between the places named. The two routes between
Millersburgh and Lodi in northern Ohio are explained by
the statement that the most direct route, the western one,
fell under suspicion for a while, and in the meantime a
more circuitous path was followed through Holmesville and
Seville.^
During the long process by which the slave with the help of
friends was being transmuted into the freeman he spent much
of his time in concealment. His progress was made in the
night-time. When a station was reached he was provided
1 Letter of Thomas L. Smith, Fredericksburg, Wayne Co., 0., Oct. 6,
1894.
HIDING-PLACES 63
with a hiding-place, and he scarcely left it until his host
decided it would be safe for him to continue his journey.
The hiding-places the fugitive entered first and last were as
dissimilar as can well be imagined. ^'Slaves that crossed the
Ohio River at Ripley, and fell into the hands of the Rev.
John Rankin, were often concealed in his barn, which is said
to have been provided with a secret cellar for use by the
slaves when pursuers approached. The barn of Deacon Jirch
Piatt at Mendon, Illinois, was a haven into which many
slaves from Missouri were piloted by way of Quincy. A
hazel thicket in Mr. Piatt's pasture-lot was sometimes re-
sorted to,^ as was one of his hayricks that was hollow and
had a blind entrance.^ Joshua R. Giddings, the sturdy anti-
slavery Congressman from the Western Reserve, had an out-
of-the-way bedroom in one wing of his house at Jefferson,
Ohio, that was kept in readiness for fugitive slaves.^ The
attic over the Liberator office in Boston is said to have been
a rendezvous for such persons.* A station-keeper at Plain-
field, Illinois, had a woodpile with a room in the centre for
a hiding-place.® The Rev. J. Porter, pastor of a Congrega-
tional church at Green Bay, Wisconsin, was asked to furnish
a place of hiding for a family of fugitives, and at his wife's
suggestion he put them in the belfry of his church, where
they remained three days before a vessel came by which
they could be safely transported to Canada.® Mr. James
M. Westwater and other citizens of Columbus, Ohio, fitted
up an old smoke-house standing on Chestnut Street near
Fourth Street as a station of the Underground Railroad.'^
A fugitive reaching Canton, Washington County, Indiana,
was secreted for a while in a low place in a thick, dark
1 Letter of J. E. Piatt, Guthrie, Ok., March 28, 1896. Mr. Piatt is a son
of Deacon Jirch Piatt.
3 Letter of "William H. Collins, Quincy, HI., Jan. 13, 1896.
' Conversation with J. Addison Giddings, Jefferson, O.
* Letter of Lewis Ford, Boston, Mass. See also Beminiscences of Fugitive
Slave Law Days in Boston, by Austin Bearse, 1880, p. 12.
6 Letter of John Weldon, Dwight, 111., Jan. 10, 1896.
" Letter of the Rev. J. E. Roy, Chicago, 111., April 9, 1896.
' W. G. Deshler and others, Memorial on the Death of James M. West-
Koter, pp. 14, 15.
64 UNDEEGROUND RAILROAD
woods; and afterwards in a rail pen covered with straw.^
Eli F. Brown, of Amesville, Athens County, Ohio, writes :
"I built an addition to my house in which I had a room
with its partition in pannels. One pannel could be raised
about a half inch and then slid back, so as to permit a man
to enter the room. When the pannel was in place it
appeared like its fellows. ... In the abutment of Zanes-
ville bridge on the Putnam side there was a place of con-
cealment prepared." ^ " Conductors " Levi Coffin, Edward
Harwood, and W. H. Brisbane, of Cincinnati, Ohio, had a
number of hiding-places for slaves. " One was in the dark
cellar of Coffin's store; another was at Mr. Coffin's out-of-
the-way residence between Avondale and Walnut Hills;
another was a dark sub-cellar under the rear part of Dr.
Bailey's residence, corner of Sixth and College Streets."^
The gallery of the old First Church at Galesburg, Illinois,
was utilized as a place of concealment for refugees by cer-
tain members of that church.* Gabe N. Johnson, a colored
man of Ironton, on the Ohio River, sometimes hid fugitives
in a coal-bank back of his house.* This list of illustrations
could be almost indefinitely continued. A sufficient number
has been given to show the ingenuity necessarily used to
secure safety.
In the transit from station to station some simple disguise
was often assumed. Thomas Garrett, a Quaker of Wilming-
ton, Delaware, kept a quantity of garden tools on hand for
this purpose. He sometimes gave a man a scythe, rake, or
some other implement to carry through town. Having
reached a certain bridge on the way to the next station, the
pretending laborer concealed his tool under it, as he had been
directed, and journeyed on. Later the tool was taken back
to Mr. Garrett's to be used for a similar purpose.® Valentine
Nicholson, a station-keeper at Harveysburg, Warren County,
1 Letter of E. H. Trueblood, Hitchcock, Ind.
2 Letter of B. F. Brown, Amesville, O.
= Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, Feb. 11, 1894, article by W. Eldebe.
* Letter of Professor George Churchill, Galesburg, Jan. 29, 1896.
' Conversation vyith Gabe N. Johnson, Ironton, O., Sept. 30, 1894.
* Smedley, Underground Railroad, p. 242.
BARN OF SEYJIOUR FINNEY, ESQ., DETROIT, MICHIGAN.
A shelter for fugitives in Detroit, formerly standing where the Chamber of Commerce
ISuilding now stands.
THE OLD FIRST CHURCH, GALESBURG, ILLINOIS.
Fugitive slaves were sometimes concealed in the gallery of this church.
(From a recent photograph.)
DISGUISES 65
Ohio, concealed tlie identity of a fugitive, a mulatto, who
was known to be pursued, by blacking his face and hands
with burnt cork.^ Slight disguises like these were probably
not used as often as more elaborate ones. The Rev. Calvin
Fairbank, and John Fairfield, the Virginian, who abducted
many slaves from the South, resorted frequently to this means
of securing the safety of their followers. Mr. Fairbank tells
us that he piloted slave-girls attired in the finery of ladies,
men and boys tricked out as gentlemen and the servants of
gentlemen ; and that sometimes he found it necessary to
require his followers to don the garments of the opposite
sex.'^ In May, 1843, Mr. Fairbank went to Arkansas for
the purpose of rescuing William Minnis from bondage. He
found that the slave was a young man of light complexion
and prepossessing appearance, and that he closely resembled
a gentleman living in the vicinity of Little Rock. Minnis
was, therefore, fitted out with the necessary wig, beard and
moustache, and clothes like those of his model; he was
quickly drilled in the deportment of his assumed rank',
and, as the test proved, he sustained himself well in his part.
On boarding the boat that was to carry him to freedom he
discovered his owner, Mr. Brennan, but so effectual was the
slave's make-up that the master failed to penetrate the
A similar story is told by Mr. Sidney Speed, of Crawfords-
ville, Indiana, when recalling the work of his father, John
Speed, and that of Fisher Doherty. «In 1858 or 1859, a
mulatto girl about eighteen or twenty years old, very good-
looking and with some education, . . . reached our home.
The nigger-catchers became so watchful that she could not
be moved for several days. In fact, some of them were
nearly always at the house either on some pretended busi-
ness or making social visits. I do not think that the house
was searched, or they would surely have found her, as during
aU this time she remained in the garret over the old log
kitchen, where the fugitives were usually kept when there
1 Letter of Valentine Nicholson, Indianapolis, Ind., Sept. 10, 1892.
" The Bev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times, p. 10.
' Ibid., p. 34 et seq.
66 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
was danger. Her owner, a man from New Orleans, had
just bought her in Louisville, and he had traced her surely
to this place ; she had not struck the Underground before, but
had made her way alone this far, and as they got no trace of
her beyond here they returned and doubled the watches on
Doherty and my father. But at length a day came, or a
night rather, when she was led safely out through the gar-
dens to the house of a colored man named Patterson. There
she was rigged out in as fine a costume of silk and ribbons
as it was possible to procure at that time, and was furnished
with a white baby borrowed for the occasion, and accom-
panied by one of the Patterson girls as servant and nurse."
Thus disguised, the lady boarded the train at the station.
But what must have been her feelings to find her master
already in the same car; he was setting out to watch
for her at the end of the line. She kept her courage, and
when they reached Detroit she went aboard the ferry-boat
for Canada ; her pretended nurse returned to shore with the
borrowed baby ; and as the gang-plank was being raised, the
young slave-woman on the boat removed her veil that she
might bid her owner good-by. The master's display of
anger as he gazed at the departing boat was as real as the
situation was gratifying to his former slave and amusing to
the bystanders.^
John Fairfield, the Virginian, depended largely on dis-
guises in several of his abducting exploits. At one time he
was asked by a number of Canadian refugees to help some of
their relatives to the North, and when he found that many
of them had very light complexions, he decided to send them
to Canada disguised as white persons. Having secured for
them the requisite wigs and powder, he was gratified with
the' transformation in appearance they were able to effect.
He therefore secured tickets for his party, and placed them
aboard a night train for Harrisburg, where they were met by
a person who accompanied them to Cleveland and saw them
take boat for Detroit. Later Fairfield succeeded in aiding
other companies of slaves to escape from "Washington and
1 Letter from Mr. Sidney Speed, Crawfordsville, Ind., March 6, 1896.
LACK OF FOEMAI, OK6ANIZATI0N 67
Harper's Ferry by resorting to similar means.^ Among the
Quakers the woman's costume was a favorite disguise for
fugitives. No one attired in it was likely to be in the least
degree suspicioned of being anything else than what the
garb proclaimed. The veiled bonnet also was peculiarly
adapted to conceal the features of the person disguised.^
One incident will suffice to show the utility of the Quaker
costume. One evening Joseph G. Walker, a Quaker of Wil-
mington, Delaware, was appealed to by a slave-woman, who
was closely pursued. She was permitted to enter Mr.
Walker's house, and a few minutes later, in the gown and
bonnet of Mrs. Walker, she passed out of the front door lean-
ing upon the arm of the shrewd Quaker.^
It is quite apparent that the Underground Railroad was
not a formal organization with officers of different ranks, a
regular membership, and a treasury from which to meet ex-
penses. A terminology, it is true, sprang up in connection
with the work of the Road, and one hears of station-keepers,
agents, conductors, and even presidents of the Underground
Railroad; but these titles were figurative terms, borrowed
with other expressions from the convenient vocabulary of
steam railways; and while they were useful among aboli-
tionists to save circumlocution, they commended themselves
to the friends of the slave by helping to mystify the minds of
the public. The need of organization was not felt except in
a few localities. It was only in towns and cities that the
distinctions of " managers," " contributing members," and
" agents " began to develop in any significant way, and even
in the case of these places the distinctions must not be
pushed far, for they indicate merely that certain men by
their sagacious activity came to be called " managers," while
others less bold, the contributing members, were willing to
give money towards defraying the expenses of some trusty
person, the agent, who would run the risk of piloting fugi-
tives.
The first reference to an organization devoted to the busi-
1 Beminiseences of Levi Coffin, pp. 439-442.
2 M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 61.
' Smedley, Underground Bailroad, p. 244.
68 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
ness of aiding fugitive slaves occurs in a letter of George
Washington, bearing date May 12, 1786. Washington speaks
of a "society of Quakers in the city [Philadelphia], formed
for such purposes. . . ." ^ We have no means of knowing
how this body conducted its work, nor how long it continued
to exist. It is sometimes stated that the formal organization
of the Underground Road took place in 1838, but this is not
an accurate statement. An organized society of the Under-
ground Railroad was formed in Philadelphia about the year
1838. Mr. Robert Purvis, who was the president, has called
this body the first of its kind, but this may be doubted in
view of the quotation from Washington's letter above cited.
The character of the organization appears from the following
account of its methods given by Mr. Purvis : ^ " The funds
for carrying on this enterprise were raised from our anti-
slavery friends, as the cases came up,^ and their needs de-
manded it ; for many of the fugitives required no other help
than advice and direction how to proceed. To the late
Daniel Neall, the society was greatly indebted for his gener-
ous gifts, as well as for his encouraging words and fearless
independence. . . . The most eflBcient helpers or agents we
had, were two market-women, who lived in Baltimore. . . .
" Another most effective worker was a son of a slaveholder,
who lived at Newberne, S.C. Through his agency, the slaves
were forwarded by placing them on vessels. . . . Having
the address of the active members of the committee, they were
enabled to find us, when not accompanied by our agents. . . .
The fugitives were distributed among the members of the
society, but most of them were received at my house in Phil-
adelphia, where ... I caused a place to be constructed under-
neath a room, which could only be entered by a trap-door in
the floor. . . ."
This account shows clearly that the organization of 1838
was limited ; and while it was officered with a president, sec-
1 Spark's Washington, IX, 158, quoted in Quakers of Pennsylvania, by
Dr. A. C. Applegarth, Johns Hopkins Studies, X, 463.
2 The letter from which this quotation is made will be found in Under-
ground Sailroad, by R. C. Smedley, pp. 355, 356.
* The italics are my own.
LACK OF FORMAL ORGANIZATION 69
retary and committee, and had helpers at a distance called
agents, it can scarcely be said that the plan of action of the
society was different in essential points from that which de-
veloped without the formality of election of officers in many
underground centres throughout the Northern states. Levi
Coffin, by his devotion to the cause of the fugitive from boy-
hood to old age, gained the title of President of the Under-
ground Eailroad,^ but he was not at the head of a formal
organization. In northeastern Illinois, Peter Stewart, a pros-
perous citizen of Wilmington, who was a very active worker
in the cause, was sometimes called President of the Under-
ground Railroad,^ but here again the distinction seems to have
been complimentary and figurative. In truth the work was
everywhere spontaneous, and its character was such that
organization could have added little or no efficiency. Unfal-
tering confidence among members of neighboring stations
served better than a code of rules; special messengers sent
on the spur of the moment took the place of conferences held
at stated seasons; supplies gathered privately as they were
needed sufficed instead of regular dues ; and, in general, the
decision and sagacity of the individual was required rather
than the less rapid efforts of an organization.
In a few centres where the amount of secret service to be
done was large, a slight specialization of work is to be noticed.
This division of labor consisted in the employment of a regu-
lar conductor or agent at these points to manage the work of
transportation of passengers to points farther north; while
the station-keepers attended more closely to the work of re-
ceiving and caring for the new arrivals. The special con-
ductors chosen were men thoroughly acquainted with the
different routes of their respective neighborhoods. At
Mechanicsburg, Champaign County, Ohio, Udney Hyde, a
fearless and well-known citizen, acted as agent between the
local stations of J. R. Ware and Levi Rathbun, and stations
to the northeast as far as the Alum Creek Quaker Settlement,
1 Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. II, pp. 103, 104 ; see also the
Meminiscences of Levi Coffin.
' George H. Woodruff, History of Will County, Illinois, p. 268.
70 UNBEEGROmJD EAILROAD
a distance of forty miles.^ The stations at Mechanicsburg
were among the most widely known in central and southern
Ohio. They received fugitives from at least three regular
routes, and doubtless had " switch connections " with other
lines. Passengers were taken northward over one of the three,
perhaps four roads, and as one or two of these lay through
pro-slavery neighborhoods a brave and experienced agent was
almost indispensable. George W. S. Lucas, a colored man of
Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio, made frequent trips with
the closed carriage of Philip Evans, between Barnesville, New
Philadelphia and Cadiz, and two stations, Ashtabula and
Painesville, on the shore of Lake Erie. Occasionally Mr.
Lucas conducted parties to Cleveland and Sandusky and
Toledo, but in such cases he went on foot or by stage.^ His
trips were sometimes a hundred miles and more in length.
George L. Burroughes, a colored man of Cairo, Illinois, be-
came an agent for the Underground Road in 1857, while act-
ing as porter of a sleeping-car running on the Illinois Central
Railroad between Cairo and Chicago.^ At Albany, New York,
Stephen Meyers, a negro, was an agent of the Underground
Road for a wide extent of territory.* At Detroit there were
several colored agents ; among them George De Baptiste and
George Dolarson.^
The slight approach to organization manifest in some centres
in the division of labor between station-keepers and special
1 Conversation with J. R. Ware, and with the daughter of Mr. Hyde,
Mrs. Amanda Shepherd, Mechanicsburg, O., Sept. 7, 1895; conyersation
with Major Joseph C. Brand, Urbana, O., Aug. 13, 1894.
2 Conversation with George W. S. Lucas, Salem, Columbiana Co., Aug. 14,
1892, when he was fifty-nine years old. He was remarkably clear and con-
vincing in his statements, many of which have since been corroborated.
Citizens of Salem referred to him as a reliable source of information.
8 Letter from George L. Burroughes, Cairo, HI., Jan. 6, 1896. Mr. Bur-
roughes said that Mr. Robert Delany, a friend from Canada, proposed to
him that they both take an agency for the Underground Railroad. Delany
took the Rock Island route and Burroughes the Cairo route.
* Letter of Martin J^Townsend, Troy, N.Y., Sept. 4, 1896. Mr. Townsend
was counsel for the fugitivS^'Shailes Nalle, in the Nalle or Troy Rescue case.
See the little book entitled, Harriet, the Moses of Her People, 2d ed., p. 146 ;
see also History of the County of Albany, New York, from 1609-1886,
p. 725.
' Conversation with Judge J. W. Finney, Detroit, Mich., July 27, 1897.
COMMITTEES OF VIGILANCE 71
agents or conductors was caused by the large number of fugi-
tives arriving at these points, and the extreme caution neces-
sary. When, at length, indignation was aroused in the minds
of Northern abolitionists by the passage of the Fugitive Slave
Law, September 18, 1850, the determination to resist this
measure displayed itself in certain localities in the formation
of vigilance committees. Theodore Parker explains that
it was in consequence of the enactment of this measure that
"people held indignant meetings, and organized committees
of vigilance whose duty was to prevent a fugitive from being
arrested, if possible, or to furnish legal aid, and raise every
obstacle to his rendition. The vigilance committees," he
says, "were also the employees of the U. G. R. R. and
effectively disposed of many a casus belli by transferring the
disputed chattel to Canada. Money, time, wariness, devoted-
ness for months and years, that cannot be computed, and will
never be recorded, except, perhaps, in connection with cases
whose details had peculiar interest, was nobly rendered by
the true anti-slavery men." ^ Such committees of vigUance
were organized in Syracuse, New York, Boston, Springfield
and some of the smaller towns of Massachusetts, in Phila-
delphia and other places. New -York City, like Philadelphia,
had a Vigilance Committee as early as 1838. About this
association of the metropolis there is scarcely any informa-
tion.2 We must be content then to confine our attention to
the committees called into existence by the Fugitive Slave
Law of 1850.
Eight days after the enactment of this law citizens of Syra-
cuse, New York, issued a call through the newspapers for a
public meeting, and on October 4 members of all parties
crowded the city-hall to express their censure of the law.
The meeting recommended " the appointment of a Vigilance
Commitee of thirteen citizens, whose duty it shall be to see
that no person is deprived of his liberty without ' due process
of law.' And all good citizens are earnestly requested to aid
1 Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Vol. II, pp. 92, 93.
" Frederick Douglass relates that when he escaped from Maryland to New
York, in 1838, he was hefriended by David Ruggles, the secretary of the
New York Vigilance Committee ; Life of Frederick Douglass, 1881, p. 206.
72 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
and sustain them in all needed efforts for the security of every
person claiming the protection of our laws." This committee
was appointed and an address and resolutions adopted.^ At
an adjourned meeting held on October 12 the assemblage
voted to form an association, " pledged to stand by its mem-
bers in opposing this law, and to share with any of them the
pecuniary losses they may incur under the operation of this
law." The determination shown in the organization of these
two bodies was well sustained a year later when the attempt
was made by officers of the law to seize Jerry McHenry as a
fugitive slave. The Vigilance Committee decided to storm
the court-house, where the colored man was confined under
guard, and rescue the prisoner. This daring piece of work
was successfully accomplished, and the government never
again attempted to recover any slaves in central New York.^
The organization of the Vigilance Committee of Syracuse
was closely followed by the organization of a similar commit-
tee in Boston. At a meeting in Faneuil Hall, October 14,
1850, resolutions were adopted expressing the conviction that
no citizen would take part in reenslaving a fugitive, and
pledging protection to the colored residents of the city. To
make good this pledge a Vigilance Committee of fifty was
appointed.^ This body organized by choosing a president,
treasurer, and secretary, a committee of finance, an executive
committee, a legal committee and a committee of special vigi-
lance and alarm. An appeal was then issued to the citizens
of Boston calling their attention to the arrival of many desti-
tute fugitives in Boston, and to the establishment of an agency
1 The Rev. J. W. Loguen gives the names of the committee in his auto-
biography, p. 396.
2 Samuel J. May, Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, pp. 349-364 ;
Wilson, Bise and Fall of the Slave Power in the United States, Vol. II,
pp. 305, 306.
5 Ibid., p. 308. The list of members of the Committee of VigUanoe given
by Austin Bearse, the doorkeeper of the Committee, contains two hundred
and nine names. Among these are A. Bronson Alcott, Edward Atkinson,
Henry I. Bowditch, Richard H. Dana, Jr., Lewis Hayden, William Lloyd
Garrison, Samuel G. Howe, Francis Jackson, Ellis Gray Loring, James
Russell Lowell, Theodore Parker, Edmund Quincy and others of distinction.
See pp. 3, 4, 5, 6, in Mr. Bearse's Seminiscences of Fugitive-Slave-Law Days
in Boston.
BOSTON COMMITTEE OF VIGILANCE 73
for the purpose of securing employment for fugitive appli-
cants. Gifts of money and clothing were asked for. In re-
sponse to a circular sent out by the finance committee to all
the churches in 1851, a sum of about sixteen hundred dollars
was raised. That there might be cooperation throughout
the state notices were sent to all the towns in Massachusetts
urging the formation of local vigilance committees ; and as a
result such committees were organized in some towns.^
The meeting-place of the Boston Committee was Meionaon
Hall in Tremont Temple. Members were notified of an in-
tended meeting personally, if possible, by the doorkeeper of
the committee, Captain Austin Bearse.'^ The proceedings of
the committee were secret, and comparatively little is now
known about their work. It is, however, known that for ten
years the organization was active, and that although it was
not successful in rescuing Sims and Burns from a hard fate,
it nevertheless secured the liberty of more than a hundred
others.^
Soon after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed John Brown
visited Springfield, Massachusetts, where he had formerly
lived. The valley of the Connecticut had long been a line
of underground travel, and citizens of Springfield, colored
and white, had become identified with operations on this line.
Brown at once decided that the new law made organization
1 For much valuable material relating to the Vigilance Committee of Bos-
ton, see Theodore Parker's Scrap-Book, in the Boston Public Library.
2 Mr. Bearse says: "There were printed tickets of notice which I deliv-
ered to each member in person, if possible, of which the following copies are
specimens :
' Boston, June 7, 1854.
There wiU be a meeting of the Vigilance Committee at the Meionaon
(Tremont Temple), on Thursday evening, June 8, at half -past seven.
Pass in by the Office Entrance, and through the Meionaon Ante-Boom.
Theodoeb Parkee, Chairman of Executive Committees.''
' Vigilance Committee ! The members of the Vigilance Committee are
hereby notified to meet at
By order of the Committee,
A. Bearse, Doorkeeper.'' "
— Beminiscences of Fugitive-Slave-Law Days in Boston, pp. 15, 16.
» Ibid., p. 14.
74 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
necessary, and he formed, therefore, the League of Gileadites
to resist systematically the enforcement of the law. The
name of this order was significant in that it contained a
warning to those of its members that should show themselves
cowards. "Whosoever is fearful or afraid let him return
and depart early from Mount Gilead." ^ In the " Agreement
and Rules " that Brown drafted for the order, adopted Janu-
ary 15, 1851, the following directions for action were laid
down : " Should one of your number be arrested, you must
collect together as quickly as possible, so as to outnumber
your adversaries. . . . Let no able-bodied man appear on
the ground unequipped, or with his weapons exposed to
view. . . . Your plans must be known only to yourselves
and with the understanding that all traitors must die, wher-
ever caught and proven to be guilty. . . . Let the first blow
be the signal for all to engage, . . . make clean work with
your enemies, and be sure you meddle not with any others.
. . . After effecting a rescue, if you are assailed, go into
the houses of your most prominent and influential white
friends with your wives, and that will effectually fasten upon
them the suspicion of being connected with you, and will
compel them to make a common cause with you. . . . You
may make a tumult in the court-room where a trial is going
on by burning gunpowder freely in paper packages. . . .
But in such case the prisoner will need to take the hint at
once and bestir himself ; and so should his friends improve
the opportunity for a general rush. . . . Stand by one
another, and by your friends, while a drop of blood remains;
and be hanged, if you must, but tell no tales out of school.
Make no confession." By adopting the Agreement and
Rules forty-four colored persons constituted themselves "a
branch of the United States League of Gileadites," and
agreed " to have no ofiBcers except a treasurer and secretary
pro tem., until after some trial of courage," when they could
choose ofiicers on the basis of " courage, efficiency, and gen-
eral good conduct." ^ Doubtless the Gileadites of Springfield
1 Judg. vii. 3 ; Deut. xx. 8 ; referred to by Brown in his " Agreement and
Rules."
" F. B. Sanborn, in his Life and Letters of John Brown, pp. 125, 126,
WILLIAM STILL,
Chairman of the Acting Vigilance Committee in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, 1852-1860.
PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEES OF VIGILANCE 75
did efficient service, for it appears that the importance of the
town as a way-station on the Underground Road increased
after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill.i
We have already learned that Philadelphia had a Vigilance
Committee before 1840. In a speech made before the meet-
ing that organized the new committee, December 2, 1852,
Mr. J. Miller McKim, the secretary of the Pennsylvania
Anti-Slavery Society, gave the reasons for establishing a new
committee. He said that the old committee "had become
disorganized and scattered, and that for the last two or three
years the duties of this department had been performed by
individuals on their own responsibility, and sometimes in a
very irregular manner." It was accordingly decided to form
a new committee, called the General Vigilance Committee,
with a chairman and treasurer ; and within this body an Act-
ing Committee of four persons, " who should have the re-
sponsibility of attending to every case that might require
their aid, as well as the exclusive authority to raise the funds
necessary for their purpose." The General Committee com-
prised nineteen members, and had as its head Mr. Robert
Purvis, one of the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments
of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and the first president
of the old committee. The Acting Committee had as its
chairman William Still, a colored clerk in the office of the
Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and a most energetic
underground helper. The Philadelphia Vigilance Commit-
tee, thus constituted, continued intact until Lincoln issued
the Emancipation Proclamation.^ Some insight into the
work accomplished by the Acting Committee can be ob-
tained by an examination of the book compiled by William
Still under the title Underground Railroad Records. The
Acting Committee was required to keep a record of all its
doings. Mr. Still's volume was evidently amassed by the
gives the agreement, rules, and signatures. See also R. J. Hinton's John
Brown and His Men, Appendix, pp. 585, 588.
1 Mason A. Green, History of Springfield, Massachusetts, 1636-1886,
p. 506.
^ Article, " Meeting to Form a Vigilance Committee," in the Pennsylvania
Freeman, Dec. 9, 1852 ; quoted in Underground Eailroad Records, by William
Still, pp. 610-612.
T6 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
transcription of many of the incidents that found their way
under this order into the archives of the committee. The
work was limited to the assistance of such needy fugitives as
came to Philadelphia ; and was not extended, except in rare
cases, to inciting slaves to run away from their masters, or to
aiding them in so doing.i
The relief of the destitution existing among the wayworn
travellers was a matter requiring considerable outlay of time
and money on the part of abolitionists. There was occasion-
ally a fugitive or family of fugitives, that, having better
opportunity or possessing greater foresight than others, made
provision for the journey and escaped to Canada with little
or no dependence on the aid of underground operators.
Asbury Parker, of fronton, Ohio, fled from Greenup County,
Kentucky, in 1857, clad in a suit of broadcloth, alone befit-
ting, as he thought, the dignity of a free man.^ The brother
of Anthony Bingey, of Windsor, Ontario, came unexpectedly
into the possession of five hundred dollars. With this money
he instructed a friend in Cincinnati to procure a team and
wagon to convey the family of Bingey to Canada. The com-
pany arrived at Sandusky after being only three days on the
road.^
But the mass of fugitives were thinly clad, and had only
such food as they could forage until they reached the Under-
ground Railroad. The arrival of a company at a station would
be at once followed by the preparation, often at midnight, of
a meal for the pilgrims and their guides. It was a common
thing for a station to entertain a company of five or six ; and
companies of twenty-eight or thirty are not unheard of. Levi
Coffin says, " The largest company of slaves ever seated at
our table, at one time, numbered seventeen." * During one
month in the year 1854 or 1855 there were sixty runaways
at the house of Aaron L. Benedict, a station in the Alum
1 Still's Underground Mailroad Records, p. 177. References to the action
of the committee of which Mr. Still was chairman will be found scattered
through the Becords. See, for example, pp. 70, 98, 102, 131, 150, 162, 173,
176, 204, 224, 274, 275, 303, 325, 335, 388, 412, 449, 493, 500.
2 Conversation with Ashury Parker, Ironton, O., Sept. 30, 1894.
" Conversation with Anthony Bingey, Windsor, Ont. , July 3, 1895.
' Beminiscences, p. 178.
SUPPLIES FOK PASSENGERS 77
Creek Quaker Settlement in central Ohio. On one occasion
twenty sat down to dinner in Mr. Benedict's house. ^ It will
thus be seen that the supply of provisions alone was for the
average station-keeper no inconsiderable item of expense,
and that it was one involving much labor.
The arrangements for furnishing fugitives with clothing,
like much of the underground work done at the stations,
came within the province of the women of the stations.
While the noted fugitive, William Wells Brown, lay sick at
the house of his benefactor, Mr. Wells Brown, in southwest-
ern Ohio, the family made him some clothing, and Mr.
Brown purchased him a pair of boots.^ Women's anti-sla-
very societies in many places conducted sewing-circles, as a
branch of their work, for the purpose of supplying clothes
and other necessities to fugitives. The Woman's Anti-Sla-
very Society of Ellington, Chautauqua County, New York,
sent a letter to William Still, November 21, 1859, saying :
" Every year we have sent a box of clothing, bedding, etc.,
to the aid of the fugitive, and wishing to send it where it
would be of the most service, we have it suggested to us, to
send to you the box we have at present. You would confer
a favor ... by writing us, . . . whether or not it would be
more advantageous to you than some nearer station. . . ." ^
The Women's Anti-Slavery Sewing Society of Cincinnati
maintained an active interest in underground work going on
in their city by supplying clothing to needy travellers.* The
Female Anti-Slavery Association of Henry County, Indiana,
organized a Committee of Vigilance in 1841 " to seek out
such colored females as are not suitably provided for, who
may now be, or who shall hereafter come, within our limits,
and assist them in any way they may deem expedient, either
by advice or pecuniary means. . . ." ^
1 Conversation with M. J. Benedict, Alum Creek Settlement, Dec. 2, 1893.
See also Underground Bailroad, Smedley, pp. 56, 136, 142, 174.
2 Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave, -written by Mmself,
2ded., 1848, p. 102.
« The letter is printed in full, together with other letters, in Still's Under-
ground Railroad Records, pp. 590, 591.
* Levi CofSn, Beminiscences, p. 316.
6 Protectionist, Arnold Bufium, Editor, New Garden, Ind., 7th mo., 1st,
1841,
78 UNDEKGEOUND EAILROAD
/ In some of the large centres, money as well as clothing
and food was constantly needed for the proper performance
of the underground work. Thus, for example, at Cincinnati,
Ohio, it was frequently necessary to hire carriages in which
to convey fugitives out of the city to some neighboring
station. From time to time as the occasion arose Levi Coffin
collected the funds needed for such purposes from business
acquaintances. He called these contributors "stock-holders "
in the Underground Railroad.^ After steam railroads be-
came incorporated in the underground system money was
required at different points to purchase tickets for fugitives.
The Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia defrayed the trav-
elling expenses of many refugees in sending some to New
York City, some to Elmira and a few to Canada.^ Fred-
erick Douglass, who kept a station at Rochester, New York,
received contributions of money to pay the railroad fares of
the fugitives he forwarded to Canada and to give them a
little more for pressing necessities.^
The use of steam railroads as a means of transportation of
this class of passengers began with the completion of lines of
road to the lakes. This did not take place till about 1850.
It was, therefore, during the last decade of the history of the
Underground Road that surface lines, as they were some-
times called by abolitionists, became a part of the secret
system. There were probably more surface lines in Ohio
than in any other state. The old Mad River Railroad, or
Sandusky, Dayton and Cincinnati Railroad, of western Ohio,
(now a part of the " Big Four " system), began to be used at
least as early as 1852 by instructed fugitives.* The San-
dusky, Mansfield and Newark Railroad (now the Baltimore
and Ohio) from Utica, Licking County, Ohio, to Sandusky,
was sometimes used by the same class of persons.^ After
1 Beminiscences, pp. 317, 321.
' Still's Underground Bailroad Becords, p. 613.
" Ibid., p. 598. In the fragment of a letter from -whicli Mr. Still quotes,
Mr. Douglass says, "They [the fugitives] usually tarry with us only during
the night, and are forwarded to Canada by the morning train. We give them
supper, lodging, and breakfast, pay their expenses, and give them a half-dollar
over."
♦ The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 21. 6 jjjy.^ pp. 23, 57, 79.
TRANSPORTATION OVER STEAM RAILROADS 79
the construction of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati
Railroad 1 as far as Greenwich in northern Ohio, fugitives
often came to that point concealed in freight-cars. In east-
ern Ohio there were two additional routes by rail sometimes
employed in underground traffic : one of these appears to
have been the Cleveland and Canton from Zanesville north,^
and the other was the Cleveland and Western between
Alliance and Cleveland.^ In Indiana the Louisville, New
Albany and Chicago Railroad from Crawfordsville north-
ward was patronized by underground travellers until the
activity of slave-hunters caused it to be abandoned.* Fugi-
tives were sometimes transported across the State of Michi-
gan by the Michigan Central Railroad. In Illinois there seems
to have been not less than three railroads that carried fugi-
tives: these were the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy,^ the
Chicago and Rock Island ^ and the Illinois Central.^ When
John Brown made his famous journey through Iowa in the
winter of 1858-1859 he shipped his company of twelve fugi-
tives in a stock car from West Liberty, Iowa, to Chicago,
by way of the Chicago and Rock Island route.^ In Pennsyl-
vania and New York there were several lines over which
runaways were sent when circumstances permitted. At
Harrisburg, Reading and other points along the Philadelphia
and Reading Railroad, fugitives were put aboard the cars
for Philadelphia.^ From Pennsylvania they were forwarded
1 Ibid.1 p. 74. The "Three C's" is now the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago
and St. Louis Railroad, or "Big Four " Route.
2 Conversation vyith Thomas Williams, of Pennsville, O. ; letter of H. C.
Harvey, Manchester, Kan., Jan. 16, 1893.
8 Letter of I. Newton Peirce, Folcroft, Pa., Feb. 1, 1893.
* Letter of Sidney Speed, Crawfordsville, Ind., March 6, 1896. Mr. Speed
and his father were both connected with the Crawfordsville centre.
5 Life and, Poems of John Howard Bryant, p. 30 ; letter of William H.
Collins, Quincy, 111., Jan. 13, 1896 ; History of Knox County, Illinois, p. 211.
5 Letter of George L. Burroughes, Cairo, 111., Jan. 6, 1896.
' Ibid. ; conversation with the Rev. R. G. Ramsey, Cadiz, 0., Aug. 18, 1892.
' J. B. Grinnell, Men and Events of Forty Years, p. 216.
9 Smedley, Underground Bailroad, pp. 174, 176, 177, 365. The following
letter Is in point : — „ schutlkill, 11th Mo., 7th, 1857.
William Still, Respected Friend : — There are three colored friends at
my house now, who will reach the city by the Philadelphia and Reading train
this evening. Please meet them. rrv,ir,o otn
Ihme, etc., j,_ j,_ Peuntpaoker."
80 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
by the Vigilance Committee over different lines, sometimes
by way of the Pennsylvania Railroad to New York City;
sometimes by way of the Philadelphia and Reading and the
Northern Central to Elmira, New York, whence they were
sent on by the same line to Niagara Falls. Fugitives put
aboard the cars at Elmira were furnished with money from
a fund provided by the anti-slavery society. As a matter of
precaution they were sent out of town at four o'clock in the
morning, and were always placed by the train officials, who
knew their destination, in the baggage-car.i The New York
Central Railroad from Rochester west was an outlet made
use of by Frederick Douglass in passing slaves to Canada.
At Syracuse, during several years before the beginning of
the War, one of the directors of this road, Mr. Horace White,
the father of Dr. Andrew D. White, distributed passes to fugi-
tives. This fact did not come to the knowledge of Dr. White
until after his father's demise. He relates : " Some years
after ... I met an old ' abolitionist ' of Syracuse, who said
to me that he had often come to my father's house, rattled
at the windows, informed my father of the passes he needed
for fugitive slaves, received them through the window, and
then departed, nobody else being the wiser. On my asking
my mother, who survived my father several years, about it,
she said : ' Yes, such things frequently occurred, and your
father, if he was satisfied of the genuineness of the request,
always wrote off the passes and handed them out, asking no
questions." ^
In the New England states fugitives travelled, under the
instruction of friends, by way of the Providence and Worcester
Railroad from Valley Falls, Rhode Island, to Worcester, Mas-
sachusetts, where by arrangement they were transferred to the
Vermont Road.' The Boston and Worcester Railroad be-
tween Newton and Worcester, Massachusetts, as also between
Boston and Worcester, seems to have been used to some ex-
tent in this way.* The Grand Trunk, extending from Port-
1 Letter of John W. Jones, Elmira, N.Y., Jan. 18, 1897.
2 Letter of the Hon. Andrew D. White, Ithaca, N.T., April 10, 1897,
8 Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, Anti-Slavery neminiscences, pp. 28, 38.
* Letter of William I. Bowditch, Boston, April 5, 1893. Mr. Bowditch
says: "Generally I passed them (the fugitives) on to William Jackson, at
TEAITIC BY WATER 81
land, Maine, through the northern parts of New Hampshire
and Vermont into Canada, occasionally gave passes to fugi-
tives, and would always take reduced fares for this class of
passengers.^
The advantages of escape by boat were early discerned by
slaves living near the coast or along inland rivers. Vessels
engaged in our coastwise trade became more or less involved
in transporting fugitives from Southern ports to Northern
soil. Small trading vessels, returning from their voyages to
Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, landed slaves on the New
England coast.^ In July, 1853, the brig Florence (Captain
Amos Hopkins, of Hallo well, !Maine) from Wilmington, North
Carolina, was required, while lying in Boston harbor, to sur-
render a fugitive found on board. In September, 1851, the
schooner Sally Ann (of Belfast, Maine), from the same South-
ern port, was induced to give up a slave known to be on board.
In October of the same year the brig Cameo (of Augusta,
Maine) brought a stowaway from Jacksonville, Florida, into
Boston harbor, and, as in the two preceding cases, the slave
was rescued from the danger of return to the South through
the activity and shrewdness of Captain Austin Bearse, the
agent of the Vigilance Committee of Boston.^ The son of
a slaveholder living at Newberne, North Carolina, forwarded
slaves from that point to the Vigilance Committee of Phila-
delphia on vessels engaged in the lumber trade.* In Novem-
ber, 1855, Captain Fountain brought twenty-one fugitives
concealed on his vessel in a cargo of grain from Norfolk,
Virginia, to Philadelphia.^
The tributaries flowing into the Ohio River from Virginia
and Kentucky furnished convenient channels of escape for
Newton. His house being on the Worcester Railroad, he could easily forward
any one." Captain Aiistin Bearse, Reminiscences of Fugitive- Slave Law
Days in Boston, p. .37.
1 Letter of Brown Thurston, Portland, Me., Oct. 21, 1895.
2 Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, Anti-Slavery Beminiscences, pp. 27, 30.
' Austin Bearse, Beminiscences of Fugitive- Slave Law Bays in Boston,
1880, pp. 34-39.
* Smedley, Underground Bailroad, letter of Robert Purvis, of Philadel-
phia, p. 335.
s Still, Underground Bailroad Becords, pp. 165-172. For other cases, see
pp. 211, 379-381, 437, 558, 559-565.
82 TINDEEGROTIND RAILROAD
many slaves. The concurrent testimony of abolitionists living
along the Ohio is to the effect that streams like the Kanawha
River bore many a boat-load of fugitives to the southern
boundary of the free states. It is not a mere coincidence
that a large number of the most important centres of activity
lie along the southern line of the Western free states at pointe
near or opposite the mouths of rivers and creeks. On the
Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois rivers north-bound steamboats
not infrequently provided the means of escape. Jefferson
Davis declared in the Senate that many slaves escaped from
his state into Ohio by taking passage on the boats of the
Mississippi.^
Abolitionists found it desirable to have waterway exten-
sions of their secret lines. Boats, the captains of which were
favorable, were therefore drafted into the service when run-
ning on convenient routes. Boats plying between Portland,
Maine, and St. John, New Brunswick, or other Canadian
ports, often took these passengers free of charge.^ Thomas
Garrett, of Wilmington, Delaware, sometimes sent negroes by
steamboat to Philadelphia to be cared for by the Vigilance
Committee.^ It happened on several occasions that fugitives
at Portland and Boston were put aboard ocean steamers bound
for England.* William and Ellen Craft were sent to England
after having narrowly escaped capture in Boston.^
On the great lakes the boat service was extensive. The
boats of General Reed touching at Racine, Wisconsin, received
fugitives without fare. Among these were the Sultana (Cap-
tain Appleby), the Madison, the Missouri, the Niagara and
the Keystone State. Captain Steele of the propeller Galena
was a friend of fugitives, as was also Captain Kelsey of the
Qhesapealce. Mr. A. P. Dutton was familiar with these
1 See p. 312, Chapter X.
2 Letters of Brown Thurston, Portland, Me., Jan. 13, 1893, and Oct. 21,
1895.
' For letters from Mr. Garrett to William Still, of the Acting Committee
of "Vigilance of Philadelphia, notifying him that fugitives had been sent hy
boat, see Still's Underground Sailroad Becords, pp. 380, 387.
* Letter of S. T. Pickard, Portland, Me., Nov. 18, 1893.
s Still, Underground Bailroad Becords, p. 368 ; Wilson, Bise and Fall of
the Slave Power, Vol. II, p. 325 ; New England Magazine, January, 1890<
p. 580.
TRAFFIC BY WATER 83
vessels and their oflScers, and for twenty years or more
shipped runaway slaves as well as cargoes of grain from
his dock in Racine.^ The Illinois (Captain Blake), running
between Chicago and Detroit, was a safe boat on which to
place passengers whose destination was Canada.^ John G.
Weiblen navigated the lakes in 1855 and 1856, and took
many refugees from Chicago to CoUingwood, Ontario.^ The
Arrow,^ the United States,^ the Bay City and the Mayflower
plying between Sandusky and Detroit, were boats the officers
of which were always willing to help negroes reach Canadian
ports. The Forest Queen, the Morning Star and the May
Queen, running between Cleveland and Detroit, the Phoebus,
a little boat plying between Toledo and Detroit, and, finally,
some scows and sail-boats, are among the old craft of the
great lakes that carried many slaves to their land of promise.^
A clue to the number of refugees thus transported to Canada
is perhaps given by the record of the boat upon which the
fugitive, William Wells Brown, found employment. This boat
ran from Cleveland to Buffalo and to Detroit. It quickly
became known at Cleveland that Mr. Brown would take
escaped slaves under his protection without charge, hence he
rarely failed to find a little company ready to sail when he
started out from Cleveland. " In the year 1842," he says,
" I conveyed, from the first of May to the first of December,
sixty-nine fugitives over Lake Erie to Canada." ^
The account of the method of the Underground Railroad
could scarcely be called complete without some notice of the
rescue of fugitives under arrest. The first rescue occurred
at the intended trial of the first fugitive slave case in Boston
in 1793. Mr. Josiah Quincy, counsel for the fugitive, " heard
1 Letter of A. P. Button, of Racine, Wis., April 7, 1896. As a shipper of
grain and an abolitionist for twenty years in Racine, Mr. Button was able to
turn his dock into a place of deportation for runaway slaves.
2 A. J. Andreas, History of Chicago, Vol. I, p. 606.
« Letter of Mr. Weiblen, Fairview, Erie Co., Pa., Nov. 26, 1895.
« The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 46.
' Ihid., p. 50.
• The names of the last six boats given, as well as several of the others,
were obtained from freedmen in Canada, who keep them in grateful remem-
brance.
' Narrative of William W. Brown, by himself, 1848, pp. 107, 108.
84 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
a noise, and, turning around, saw the constables lying sprawl-
ing on the floor, and a passage opening through the crowd,
through which the fugitive was taking his departure without
stopping to hear the opinion of the court." ^
The prototype of deliverances thus established was, it is
true, more or less deviated from in later instances, but the
general characteristics of these cases are such that they
naturally fall into one class. They are cases in which the
execution of the law was interfered with by friends of the
prisoner, who was spirited away as quickly as possible. The
deliverance in 1812 of a supposed runaway from the hands of
his captor by the New England settlers of Worthington, Ohio,
has already been referred to in general terms. ^ But some
details of the incident are necessary to bring out more clearly
the propriety of its being included in the category of instances
of violation of the constitutional provision for the rendition
of escaped slaves. It appears that word was brought to the
village of Worthington of the capture of the fugitive at a
neighboring town, and that the villagers under the direction
of Colonel James Kilbourne took immediate steps to release
the negro, who, it was said, was tied with ropes, and being
afoot, was compelled to keep up as best he could with his
master's horse. On the arrival of the slave-owner and his
chattel, the latter was freed from his bonds by the use of a
butcher-knife in the hands of an active villager, and the
forms of a legal dismissal were gone through before a court
and an audience whose convictions were ruinous to any
representations the claimant was able to make. The dis-
possessed master was permitted to continue his journey
southward, while the negro was directed to get aboard a
government wagon on its way northward to Sandusky. The
return of the slave-hunter a day or two later with a process
obtained in Franklinton, authorizing the retaking of his
property, secured him a second hearing, but did not change
the result. A fugitive, Basil Dorsey, from Liberty, Frederick
County, Maryland, was seized in Bucks Count}--, Pennsyl-
1 Mr. Quinoy's report of the case, quoted by M. G. McDougall, Fugitive
Slaves, p. 35.
2 See p. 38.
RESCUE OF FUGITIVES UNDER ARREST 85
vania, in 1836, and carried away. Overtaken by Mr. Robert
Purvis at Doylestown, be was brought into court, and the
hearing of the case was postponed for two weeks. When the
day of trial came the counsel for the slave succeeded in
getting the case dismissed on the ground of certain ob-
jections. Thereupon the claimants of the slave hastened
to a magistrate for a new warrant, but just as they were
returning to rearrest the fugitive, he was hustled into
the buggy of Mr. Purvis and driven rapidly out of the
reach of the pursuers.^ ^In October, 1853, the case of Louis,
a fugitive from Kentucky on trial in Cincinnati, was brought
to a conchision in an unexpected way. The United States
commissioner was about to pronounce judgment when the
prisoner, taking advantage of a favorable opportunity, slipped
from his chair, had a good hat placed upon his head by some
friend, passed out of the court-room among a crowd of colored
visitors and made his way cautiously to Avondale. A few
minutes after the disappearance of the fugitive his absence
was discovered by the marshal that had him in charge ; and
although careful search was made for him, he escaped to
Canada by means of the Underground Railroad.^ /In April,
1859, Charles Nalle, a slave from Culpeper County, Vir-
ginia, was discovered in Troy, New York, and taken before
the United States commissioner, who remanded him back to
slavery. As the news of this decision spread, a crowd
gathered about the commissioner's office. In the meantime,
a writ of habeas corpus was served upon the marshal that had
arrested Nalle, commanding that officer to bring the prisoner
before a judge of the Supreme Court. When the marshal
and his deputies appeared with the slave, the crowd made a
charge upon them, and a hand-to-hand melee resulted. Inch
by inch the progress of the officers was resisted until they
were worn out, and the slave escaped. In haste the fugitive
was ferried across the river to West Troy, only to fall into
the hands of a constable and be again taken into custody.
The mob had followed, however, and now stormed the door
behind which the prisoner rested under guard. In the attack
^ Smedley, Underground Bailroad, pp. 356-361.
2 Levi Coffin, JSeminiscences, pp. 548-554.
86 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
the door was forced open, and over the body of a negro assail-
ant, struck down in the fray, the slave was torn from his
guards, and sent on his way to Canada.^ Well-known cases
of rescue, such as the Shadrach case, which occurred in Bos-
ton in January, 1851, and the Jerry rescue, which occurred
in Syracuse nine months later, may be omitted here. They,
like many others that have been less often chronicled, show
clearly the temper of resolute men in the communities where
they occurred. It was felt by these persons that the slave,
who had already paid too high a penalty for his color, could
not expect justice at the hands of the law, that his liberty
must be preserved to him, and a base statute be thwarted at
any cost.
1 This account is condensed from a report given in the Troy Whig, April
28, 1859, and printed in the book entitled, Harriet the Moses of Her People,
pp. 143-149.
y-^'U-7^5 %r-f,tl
i ^
' /y r p^
/7y-y ^f^Ti
THE REPUTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
Mr. Coffin and his wife aided more than 3000 slaves in their flight.
CHAPTER IV
UNDERGEOUND AGENTS, STATION-KBEPBKS, OK C0NDT7CT0ES
Persons opposed to slavery were, naturally, the friends of
the fugitive slave, and were ever ready to respond to his
appeals for help. Shelter and food were readily suppKed
him, and he was directed or conveyed, generally in the night,
to sympathizing neighbors, until finally, without any fore-
thought or management on his own part, he found himself in
Canada a free man. V These helpers, in the course of time,
came to be called agents, station-keepers, or conductors on the
Underground Railroad. Of the names of those that belonged
to this class of practical emancipationists, 3,211 have been
catalogued ;i change of residence and death have made it
impossible to obtain the names of many more. T Considering
the kind of labor performed and the danger involved, one is
impressed with the unselfish devotion to principle of these
emancipators. There was for them, of course, no outward
honor, no material recompense, but instead such contumely
and seeming disgrace as can now be scarcely comprehended.
Nevertheless, they were rich in courage, and their hospital-
ity was equal to all emergencies. They gladly gave aid and
comfort to every negro seeking freedom ; and the numbers
befriended by many helpers despite penalties and abuse show
with what moral determination the work was carried on. \ It
has been said that the Hopkins, Salsbury, Snediger, Dickey
and Kirkpatrick families, of southern Ohio, forwarded more
than 1,000 fugitives to Canada before the year 1817.^ Daniel
Gibbons, of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was engaged
in helping fugitive slaves during a period of fifty-six years.
"He did not keep a record of the number he passed until 1824.
1 See Appendix E, pp. 405-439.
* William Bimey, James G. Birney and His Times, p. 436.
87
88 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
But prior to that time, it was supposed to have been over 200,
and up to the time of his death (in 1853) he had aided about
1,000." 1 It has been estimated that Dr. Nathan M. Thomas, of
Schoolcraft, Michigan, forwarded between 1,000 and 1,500 f ugi-
tives.2 John Fairfield, the abductor, " piloted not only hun-
dreds, but thousands." ^ The Rev. Charles T. Torrey went to
Maryland and " from there sent — as he wrote previous to 1844
— some 400 slaves over different routes to Canada." * PhUo
Carpenter, of Chicago, is reported to have escorted 200 fugi-
tives to vessels bound for Canada.® In a letter to William
Still, in November, 1857, Elijah F. Pennypacker, of Chester
County, Pennsylvania, writes, " we have within the past two
months passed forty-three through our hands." ^ H. B. Leeper,
of Princeton, Illinois, says that the most successful business
he ever accomplished in this line was the helping on of thirty-
one men and women in six weeks' time.'' Leverett B. Hill,
of Wakeman, Ohio, assisted 103 on their way to Canada
during the year 1852.* Mr. Van Dorn, of Quincy, in a service
of twenty-five years, assisted "some two or three hundred
fugitives."® W. D. Schooley, of Richmond, Indiana, writes,
"I think I must have assisted over 100 on their way to
liberty." 1° Jonathan H. Gray, Milton Hill and John H.
Frazee were conductors at Carthage, Indiana, and are said to
have helped over 150 fugitives.-'^ " Thousands of fugitives
found rest" at Ripley, Brown County, Ohio.^ During the
lifetime of General Mclntire, a Virginian, who settled in
Adams County, Ohio, "more than 100 slaves found a safe
retreat under his roof." Other helpers in the same state
1 Smedley, Underground Railroad, p. 56.
2 Letter of Mrs. Pamela S. Thomas, Schoolcraft, Mich., March 25, 1896.
2 Letter of Mrs. Laura S. Haviland, Englewood, 111., June 5, 1893.
< Letter of M. M. Fisher, Medway, Mass., Oct. 23, 1893.
5 E. G. Mason, Early Chicago and Illinois, 1890, p. 110.
8 Letter of Sarah C. Pennypacker, Schuylkill, Pa., June 8, 1896.
' Letter of H. B. Leeper, Princeton, 111., Dec. 19, 1895.
" Letter of E. S. Hill, Atlantic, la., Oct. 30, 1894.
^ Wilson, Bise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. II, p. 67.
1" Letter of W. D. Schooley, Nov. 15, 1893.
1^ Letter of James H. Frazee, Milton, Ind., Feb. 3, 1894.
^ Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. I, p. 335. See also
History of Brown County, Ohio, p. 443.
HOSPITALITY OF OPERATORS 89
rendered service deserving of mention. Ozem Gardner, of
Sharon Township, Franklin County, " assisted more than 200
fugitives on their way in all weathers and at all times of the
day and night." ^ It is estimated by a friend of Dr. J. A.
Bingham and George J. Payne, two operators of Gallia
County, that the line of escape with which these men were
connected was travelled by about 200 slaves every year from
1845 to 1856.2 From 1844 to 1860 John H. Stewart, a col-
ored station-keeper of the same county, kept about 100 fugi-
tives at his house.3 Five hundred are said to have passed
through the hands of Thomas L. Gray, of Deavertown, in Mor-
gan County.* Ex-President Fairchild speaks of the " multi-
tudes " of fugitives that came to Oberlin, and says that " not
one was ever finally taken back to bondage." ^ Many other
stations and station-agents that were instrumental in helping
large numbers of slaves from bondage to freedom cannot be
mentioned here.
Reticent as most underground operators were at the time
in regard to their unlawful acts, they did not attempt to con-
ceal their principles. On the contrary, they were zealous in
their endeavors to make converts to a doctrine that seemed
to them to have the combined warrant of Scripture and of
their own conscience, and that agreed with the convictions
of the fathers of the Republic. The Golden Rule and the
preamble of the Declaration of Independence they often re-
cited in support of their position. When they had trans-
gressed the Fugitive Slave Law of Congress they were wont
to find their justification in what ex-President Fairchild of
Oberlin has aptly called the Fugitive Slave Law of the Mo-
saic institutions : ® " Thou shalt not deliver unto his master
the servant which hath escaped unto thee ; he shall dwell
with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall
^ History of Franklin and Pickaway Counties, Ohio, p. 424.
2 Letter of Dr. N. B. Sisson, Porter, Gallia Co., O., Sept. 16, 1894.
« Letter of Gabe N. Johnson, Ironton, O., November, 1894.
* Article in the New Lexington (0.) Tribune, signed " W. A. D.," fall of
1885 ; exact date unknown.
' Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 11, p. 380.
« Fairchild, The Underground Bailroad, Vol. IV; Tract No. 87, Western
Eeserve Historical Society, p. 97.
90 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
choose in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou
shalt not oppress him."i They refused to observe a law that
made it a felony in their opinion to give a cup of cold water
to famishing men and women fleeing from servitude. Their
faith and determination is clearly expressed in one of the
old anti-slavery songs : —
" 'Tis the law of God in the human soul,
'Tis the law in the Word Divine ;
It shall live while the earth in its course shall roU,
It shall live in this soul of mine.
Let the law of the land forge its bonds of wrong,
I shall help when the self-freed crave ;
For the law in my soul, bright, beaming, and strong,
Bids me succor the fleeing slave."
Theodore Parker was but the mouthpiece of many abolition-
ists throughout the Northern states when he said, at the con-
clusion of a sermon in 1850 : " It is known to you that the
Fugitive Slave Bill has become a law. ... To law framed
of such iniquity I owe no allegiance. Humanity, Christianity,
manhood revolts against it. . . . For myself I say it solemnly,
I will shelter, I will help, and I will defend the fugitive with
all my humble means and power. I will act with any body
of decent and serious men, as the head, or the foot, or the
hand, in any mode not involving the use of deadly weapons,
to nullify and defeat the operation of this law. . . ." ^
Sentiments of this kind were cherished in almost every
Northern community by a few persons at least. There were
some New England colonies in the West where anti-slavery
sentiments predominated. These, like some of the religious
communities, as those of the Quakers and Covenanters, became
well-known centres of underground activity. In general it
is safe to say that the majority of helpers in the North were
of Anglo-American stock, descendants of the Puritan and
Quaker settlers of the Eastern states, or of Southerners that
had moved to the Northern states to be rid of slavery. The
1 Deut. xxiii, 15, 16.
2 Delivered in Melodeon Hall, Boston, Oct. 6, 1850. The Chronotype,
Oct. 7, 1850. See Vol. II, No. 2, of the Scrap-booh relating to Theodore
Parker, compiled by Miss C. C. Thayer, Boston Public Library.
NATIONALITY OF OPERATORS 91
many stations in the eastern and northern parts of Ohio and the
northern part of Illinois may be safely attributed to the large
proportion of New England settlers in those districts. Locali-
ties where the work of befriending slaves was largely in the
hands of Quakers will be mentioned in another connection.
Southern settlers in Brown County and adjoining districts in
Ohio are said to have been regularly forwarding escaped slaves
to Canada before 1817.^ The emigration of a number of these
settlers to Bond County, Illinois, about 1820, and the removal
of a few families from that region to Putnam County in the
same state about a decade later, helps to explain the early
development of secret routes in the southern and north central
parts of Illinois.^
In the South much secret aid was rendered fugitives, no
doubt, by persons of their own race. Two colored market-
women in Baltimore were efficient agents for the VigQance
Committee of Philadelphia.^ Frederick Douglass's connec-
tion with the Underground Railroad began long before he
left the South.* In the North, people of the African race
were to be found in most communities, and in many places
they became energetic workers. Negro settlements in the
interior of the free states, as well as along their southern
frontier, soon came to form important links in the chain of
stations leading from the Southern states to Canada.
In the early days running slaves sometimes sought and
received aid from Indians. This fact is evidenced by the
introduction of fugitive recovery clauses into a number
of the treaties made between the colonies and Indian tribes.
Seven out of the eight treaties made between 1784 and 1786
contained clauses for the return of black prisoners, or of
"negroes and other property."* A few of the colonies
offered rewards to induce Indians to apprehend and restore
runaways. In 1669 Maryland " ordered that any Indian who
1 William Bimey, James &. Birney and His Times, p. 435.
^ Letter of H. B. Leeper, Princeton, 111., Dec. 19, 1895.
' Smedley, Underground, Bailroad, p. 355.
* Letter of Prederick Douglass, Cedar Hill, Anaoostia, D.C., March 27,
1893. Mr. Douglass escaped from slavery in 1839.
' M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 13, 104, 105.
92 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
shall apprehend a fugitive may have a ' match coate ' or its
value. Virginia would give ' 20 armes length of Roauake,'
or its value, while in Connecticut ' two yards of cloth ' was
considered sufficient inducement." ^ The inhabitants of the
Ottawa village of Chief Kinjeino in northwestern Ohio were
kindly disposed towards the fugitive ; ^ and the people of
Chief Brant, who held an estate on the Grand River in
Ontario west of Niagara Falls, were in the habit of receiving
colored refugees.^
The people of Scotch and Scotch-Irish descent were
naturally liberty loving, and seem to have given hearty
support to the anti-slavery cause in whatever form it pre-
sented itself to them. The small number of Scotch commu-
nities in Morgan and Logan counties, Ohio, and in Randolph
and Washington counties, Illinois, were centres of under-
ground service.
The secret work of the English, Irish and German set-
tlers cannot be so readily localized. In various places a
single German, Irishman, or Englishman is known to have
aided escaped slaves in cooperation with a few other per-
sons of different nationality, but so far as known there
were no groups made up of representatives of one or another
of these races engaged in such enterprises. At Toledo,
Ohio, the company of helpers comprised Congressman James
M. Ashley, a Pennsylvanian by birth; Richard Mott, a
Quaker; James Conlisk, an Irishman; William H. Merritt,
a negro ; and several others.* Lyman Goodnow, an operator
of Waukesha, Wisconsin, says he was told that "in cases
of emergency the Germans were next best to Quakers
for protection."^ Two German companies from Massachu-
setts enlisted for the War only when promised that they
should not be required to restore runaways to their owners.^
1 M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 7, 8, and the references there
given.
2 Letter of Colonel D. W. H. Howard, Wauseon, 0., Aug. 22, 1894.
s See Chapter VII, p. 203.
* Conversation with the Hon. James M. Ashley, Toledo, O., August, 1894.
^ Narrative of Lyman Goodnow in History of Waukesha County, Wiscon-
sin, p. 462.
6 See p. 355, Chapter XI.
CHUECH CONNECTION OF AGENTS r 93
Some religious communities and phurch societies were con-
servators of abolition ideas. The Quakers deserve, in this
work, to be placed before all other denominations because of
their general acceptance and advocacy of anti-slavery doc-
trines when the system of slavery had no other opponents.
From the time of George Fox until the last traces of the
evil were swept from the English-speaking world many
Quakers bore a steadfast testimony against it.^ Fox re-
minded slaveholders that if they were in their slaves'
places they would consider it "very great bondage and
cruelty," and he urged upon the Friends in America to
preach the gospel to the enslaved blacks. In 1688 German
Friends at Germantown, Pennsylvania, made an official pro-
test " against the traffic in the bodies of men and the treat-
ment of men as cattle." By 1772 New England Friends
began to disown (expel) members for failing to manumit
their slaves ; and four years later both the Philadelphia and
the New York yearly meetings made slaveholding a disown-
able offence. A similar step was taken by the Baltimore
Yearly Meeting in 1777; and meetings in Virginia were
directed, in 1784, to disown those that refused to emancipate
their slaves.^ Owing to obstacles in the way of setting
slaves free in North Carolina, a committee of Quakers of
that state was appointed in 1822 to examine the laws of
some of the free states respecting the admission of people
of color therein. In 1823 the committee reported that there
was "nothing in the laws of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to
prevent the introduction of people of color into those states,
and agents were instructed to remove «slaves placed in their
care as fast as they were willing to go." These facts show
the sentiment that prevailed in the Society of Friends.
Many Southern Quakers moved to the North on account of
their hatred of slavery, and established such important
centres of underground work as Springboro and Salem, Ohio,
and Spiceland and New Garden, Indiana. Quakers in New
1 S. B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 198.
'^American Church History, Vol. XII; see article on "The Society of
Friends," by Professor A. C. Thomas, pp. 242-248 ; also Weeks, Southern
Quakers and Slavery, pp. 198-219.
94 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Bedford and Lynn, Massachusetts, and Valley Falls, Rhode
Island, engaged in the service. The same class of people in
Maryland cooperated with members of their society in the
vicinity of Philadelphia. The existence of numerous Under-
ground Railroad centres in southeastern Pennsylvania and in
eastern Indiana is explained by the fact that a large number
of Quakers dwelt in those regions.
The Methodists began to take action against slavery in
1780. At an informal conference held at Baltimore in that
year the subject was presented in the form of a " Question, —
Ought not this conference to require those travelling preach-
ers who hold slaves to give promises to set them free ? " The
answer given was in the affirmative. Concerning the mem-
bership the language adopted was as follows : " We pass our
disapprobation on all our friends who keep slaves ; and ad-
vise their freedom." Under the influence of Wesleyan
preachers, it is said, not a few cases of emancipation occurred.
At a conference in 1785, however, it was decided to "suspend
the execution of the minute on slavery till the deliberations of
a future conference. . . ." Four years later a clause ap-
peared in the Discipline, by whose authority is not known,
prohibiting "The buying or selling the bodies or souls of
men, women, or children, with an intention to enslave them."
This provision evidently referred to the African slave-trade.
In 1816 the General Conference adopted a resolution that
"no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official station in
our Church hereafter, where the laws of the state in which
he lives will admit of emancipation, and permit the liberated
slave to enjoy freedom." Later there seems to have been a
disposition on the part of the church authorities to suppress
the agitation of the slavery question, but it can scarcely be
doubted that the well-known views of the Wesleys and of
Whitfield remained for some at least the standard of right
opinion, and that their declarations formed for these the rule
of action. In 1842 a secession from the church took place,
chiefly if not altogether on account of the question of slavery,
and a number of abolitionist members of the uncompromising
type founded a new church organization, which they called
the " Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America." Slave-
CHURCH CONNECTION OF AGENTS 95
holders were excluded from fellowship in this body. Within
two or three years the new organization had drawn away
twenty thousand members from the old.^ In 1844 a much
larger secession took place on the same question, the occa-
sion being the institution of proceedings before the General
Conference against the Rev. James O. Andrew, D.D., a slave-
holding bishop of the South. This so aggravated the Metho-
dist Episcopal societies in the slave states that they withdrew
and formed the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Among
the members of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection and of
the older society of the North there were a number of zealous
underground operators. Indeed, it came to be said of the
Wesleyans, as of the Quakers, that almost every neighbor-
hood where a few of them lived was likely to be a station of the
secret Road to Canada. It is probable that some of the Wes-
leyans at Wilmington, Ohio, cooperated vidth Quakers at that
point. In Urbana, Ohio, there were Methodists of the two
divisions engaged.^ Service was also performed by Wesley-
ans at Tippecanoe, Deersville and Rocky Fort in Tuscarawas
County,^ and at Piqua, Miami County, Ohio.* In Iowa a
number of Methodist ministers were engaged in the work.*
The third sect to which a considerable proportion of under-
ground operators belonged was Calvinistic in its creed. All
the various wings of Presbyterianism seem to have had repre-
sentatives in this class of anti-slavery people. The sinfulness
of slavery was a proposition that found uncompromising ad-
vocates among the Presbjrterian ministers of the South in the
early part of this century. In 1804 the Rev. James Gilliland
removed from South Carolina to Brown County, Ohio, be-
cause he had been enjoined by his presbytery and synod " to
be silent in the pulpit on the subject of the emancipation of
the African." ^ ''Other ministers of prominence, like Thomas
1 H. N. McTyeire, D.D., History of Methodism, 1887, pp. 375, 536,601, 611.
2 Conversation with Major J. C. Brand, Urbana, 0., Aug. 13, 1894.
» Conversation with Thomas M. Hazlett, Freeport, Harrison Co., 0.,
Aug. 18, 1895.
* Conversation with Mrs. Mary B. Carson, Piqua, O., Aug. 30, 1895.
5 Letter of Professor F. L. Parker, Grinnell, la., Sept. 30, 1894.
6 Wm. B. Sprague, D.D., Annals of the American Pulpit, "Vol. IV, 1858,
p. 137 ; Rohert E. Thompson, D.D., History of the Presbyterian Churches in
the United States, 1895, p. 122.
96 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
D. Baird, David Nelson and John Rankin, left the South be-
cause they were not free to speak against slavery., , In 1818 the
Presbyterian Church declared the system " inconsistent with
the law of God and totally irreconcilable with the gospel of
Christ." This teaching was afterwards departed from in 1845
when the Assembly confined its protest to admitting rather
mildly that there was " evil connected with slavery," and de-
clining to countenance " the traffic in slaves for the sake of
gain; the separation of husbands and wives, parents and
children, for the sake of filthy lucre or the convenience of the
master ; or cruel treatment of slaves in any respect." The
dissatisfaction caused by this evident compromise led to the
formation of a new church in 1847 by the " New School " Pres-
bytery of Ripley, Ohio, and a part of the " Old School " Pres-
bytery of Mahoning, Pennsylvania. This organization was
called the Free Church, and by 1860 had extended as far west
as lowa.^ It is not strange that the region in Ohio where the
Free Presbyterian Church was founded was plentifully dotted
with stations of the Underground Railroad, and that the house
of the Rev. John Rankin, who was the leader of the movement,
was known far and wide as a place of refuge for the fugi-
tive slave.2 At Savannah, Ashland County, Iberia, Morrow
County, and a point near Millersburgh, Holmes County,
Ohio, the work is associated with Free Presbyterian societies
once existing in those neighborhoods.^ / In the northern part
of Adams County, as also in the northern part of Logan
County, Ohio, fugitives were received into the homes of Cove-
nanters. Galesburg, Illinois, with its college was founded in
1837 by Presbyterians and Congregationalists, who united to
form one religious society under the name of the " Presbyte-
rian Church of Galesburg." Opposition to slavery was one
of the conditions of membership in this organization from
the beginning. This intense anti-slavery feeling caused the
1 Robert E. Thompson, D.D., History of the Presbyterian Churches in
the United States, 1895, pp. 136, 137.
2 Address by J. C. Leggett, in a pampblet entitled Rev. John Sankin,
1892, p. 9.
' Letter of Mrs. A. M. Buchanan, Savannah, 0., 1893 ; conversation with
Thomas L. Smith, Fredericksburg, Wayne Co., O., Aug. 15, 1896.
OBERLIN AS AN ABOLITION CENTRE 97
church to withdraw from the presbytery in 1855.^ From
the starting of the colony until the time of the War fugitives
from Missouri were conducted thither with the certainty of
obtaining protection. Thus Galesburg became, probably,
the principal underground station in Illinois.^ Joseph S.
White, of New Castle, in western Pennsylvania, notes the
circumstance that all the men with whom he acted in under-
ground enterprises were Presbyterians.^
The religious centre in Ohio most renowned for the aid of
refugees was the Congregational colony and college at Ober-
lin. The acquisition of a large anti-slavery contingent from
Lane Seminary in 1835 caused the college to be known from
that time on as a " hotbed of abolitionism." Fugitives were
directed thither from points more or less remote, and during
the period from 1835 to 1860 Oberlin was a busy station,*
receiving passengers from at least five converging lines.^ So
notorious did the place become that a guide-board in the form
of a fugitive running in the direction of the town was set up
by the authorities on the Middle Ridge road, six miles north
of Oberlin, and the sign of a tavern, four miles away, " was
ornamented on its Oberlin face with a representation of a fugi-
tive slave pursued by a tiger." ^ On account of the persistent
ignoring of the law against harboring slaves by those connected ' '^'"^
with the institution, the existence of the college was put in ^Q.,
jeopardy. Ex-President Fairchild relates that, " A Democratic
legislature at different times agitated the question of repeal-
ing the college charter. The fourth and last attempt was
made in 1843, when the bill for repeal was indefinitely post-
poned in the House by a vote of thirty-six to twenty-nine."'
The anti-slavery influence of Oberlin went abroad with its
1 Professor George Chvirchill, in T%e Bepublican Segister, Galesburg, 111.,
March 5, 1887.
2 Charles C. Chapman & Co., Sistory of Knox, County, Illinois, p. 210.
' Joseph S. White, Note-book containing " Some Reminiscences of Slavery
Times," New Castle, Pa., March 23, 1891.
* James H. FairchOd, D.D., The Underground Bailroad, "Vol. IV of pub-
lications of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract No. 87, p. 111.
* See the general map.
" James H. Fairchild, D.D., Oberlin, the Colony and the College, p. 117.
''Ibid., p. 116. See also Henry Hovye, Historical Collections of Ohio,
Vol. n, p. 383.
98 UNDBKGROUND RAILROAD
students. Ex-President W. M. Brooks, of Tabor College, Iowa,
a graduate of Oberlin, says, " The stations on the Underground
Railroad in southwestern Iowa were in the region of Civil
Bend, where the colony from Oberlin, Ohio, settled, which
afterwards settled Tabor. . . . From this point (Civil Bend,
now Percival) fugitives were brought to Tabor after 1852 ;
here the entire population was in sympathy with the escaped
fugitives ; . . . there was scarcely a man in the community
who was not ready to do anything that was needed to help
fugitives on their way to Canada." ^ The families that founded
Tabor were " almost all of them Congregationaligts." ^ Pro-
fessor L. F. Parker of GrinneU, Iowa, names Oberlin students
in connection with Quakers as the chief groups in Iowa whose
houses were open to fugitives.^ GrinneU itself was first
settled by people that were mainly Congregationalists.* From
the time of its foundation (1854) it was an anti-slavery centre,
" well known and eagerly sought by the few runaways who
camefromthe meagre settlements southwest. . .in Missouri."^
There were, of course, members of other denominations that
befriended the slave ; thus, it is known that the Unitarian
Seminary at Meadville, Pennsylvania, was a centre of under-
ground work,^ but, in general, the lack of information con-
cerning the church connections of many of the company of
persons with whom this chapter deals prevents the drawing of
any inference as to whether these individuals acted indepen-
dently or in conjunction with little bands of persons of their
own faith.
There seems to have been no open appeal made to church
organizations for help in behalf of fugitives except in Massa-
chusetts. In 1851, and again in 1854, the Vigilance Commit-
tee of Boston deemed it wise to send out circulars to the
clergymen of the commonwealth, requesting that contribu-
1 Letter of President W. M. Brooks, Tabor, la., Oct. 11, 1894.
^ I. B. Richman, John Brown Among the Quakers, and Other Sketches,
p. 15.
a Letter of Professor L. P. Parker, GrinneU, Iowa, Sept. 30, 1894.
* J. B. GrinneU, Men and Events of Forty Tears, p. 87.
5 Letter of Professor L. F. Parker, GrinneU, Iowa, Sept. 30, 1894.
' Conversation witii Professor Henry H. Barber, of Meadville, Pa., in
Cambridge, Mass., June, 1897.
APPEAIi TO CHUKCHES OF MASSACHUSETTS 99
tions be taken by them to be applied in mitigation of the
misery caused by the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law.
The boldness and originality of such an appeal, and more
especially the evident purpose of its framers to create senti-
ment by this means among the religious societies, entitle it to
consideration. The first circular was sent out soon after the
enactment of the odious law, and the second soon after the
passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The results secured by
the two circulars wiU be seen in the following letter from
Francis Jackson, of Boston, to his fellow-townsmen and co-
worker, the Rev. Theodore Parker.
Boston, Aug. 27, 1854.
Theodore Parker:
Dear Friend, — The contributions of the churches in behalf of
the fugitive slaves I think have about all come ia. I herewith
inclose you a schedule thereof, amounting in all to about $800,
being but little more than half as much as they contributed in 1851.
The Mass. Register published in January, 1854, states the
number of Religious Societies to be 1,547 (made up of 471 Ortho-
dox, 270 Methodist, and all others 239). We sent circulars to the
whole 1,547 ; only 78 of them have responded — say 1 in 20 —
from 130 Universalist societies, nothing, from 43 Episcopal $4,
and 20 Friends f 27 — the Baptists — four times as many of these
societies have given now as gave in 1851, this may be because
Brynes was a Baptist minister.
The average amount contributed by 77 societies (deducting Froth-
ingham of Salem) is $10 each; the 28th Congregationalist Church
in this city d^d not take up a contribution, nevertheless, indi-
vidual members thereof subscribed upwards of $300 ; they being
infidel have not been reckoned with the churches.
Of the cities and large towns scarce any have contributed.
Of the 90 and 9 in Boston all have gone astray but 2 — I have
not heard of our circular being read in one of them ; stUl it may
have been. Those societies who have contributed, I judge were
least able to do so.
Francis Jackson. ^
The political affiliations of underground helpers before
1840 were, necessarily, with one or the other of the old
1 Theodore Parker's Serap-hook, Boston Public Library.
100 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
parties — the Whig or the Democratic. As the Whig party
was predominantly Northern, and as its sentiments were more
distinctly anti-slavery than those of its rival, it is fair to sup-
pose that the small band of early abolitionists were, most of
them, allied with that party.^ The Missouri Compromise
in 1820, one may surmise, enabled those that were wavering
in their position to ally themselves with the party that was
less likely to make demands in the interests of the slave
power. In 1840 opportunity was given abolitionists to take
independent political action by the nomination of a national
Liberty ticket. At that time, and again in 1844, many under-
ground operators voted for the candidates of the Liberty party,
and subsequently for the Free Soil nominees.^
But it is not to be supposed that all friends of the fugitive
joined the political movement against slavery. Many there
were that regarded party action with disfavor, preferring the
method of moral suasion. These persons belonged to the
Quakers, or to the Garrisonian abolitionists. The Friends
or Quakers refused as far as possible to countenance slavery,
and when the political development of the abolition cause
came they regretted it, and their yearly meetings withheld
their official sanction, so far as known, from every political
organization. Nevertheless, there were some members of the
Society of Friends that were swept into the current, and
became active supporters of the Liberty party .^ The most
noted and influential of these was the anti-slavery poet,
Whittier.* When, in 1860, the Republican party nominated
Lincoln, "a large majority of the Friends, ati least in the
North and West, voted for him." ^
The followers of Garrison that remained steadfast to the
teachings and the example of their leader shunned all con-
nection with the political abolitionist movement. Garrison
^ This view agrees with the testimony gathered by correspondence from
surviving abolitionists.
2 This statement is based on a mass of correspondence.
"Professor A. C. Thomas on "The Society of Priends," in American
Church History, Vol. XII, 1894, pp. 284, 285.
* Oliver Johnson, William Lloyd Garrison and His Times, 1879, p. 322.
' Professor A. C. Thomas, in Ainerican Church History, Vol. XII, p. 285.
CHABACTER OF UNDERGROUND HELPERS lOl
never voted but once,i and by 1854 had gone so far in his
denunciation of slavery that he burned the Constitution of
the United States at an open-air celebration of the abolitionists
at Framingham, Massachusetts.^ To his dying day he seems
to have believed "that the cause would have triumphed
sooner, in a political sense, if the abolitionists had continued
to act as one body, never yielding to the temptation of form-
ing a political party, but pressing forward in the use of the
same instrumentalities which were so potent from 1831 to
1840." 3
The abolitionists were ill-judged by their contemporaries,
and were frequently subjected to harsh language and occa-
sionally to violent treatment by persons of supposed respect-
ability. The weight of opprobrium they were called upon to
bear tested their great strength of character. If the probity,
integrity and moral courage of this abused class had been
made the criteria of their standing they would have been
held from the outset in high esteem by their neighbors.
However, they lived to see the days of their disgrace turned
into days of triumph. " The muse of history," says Rhodes,
"has done full justice to the abolitionists. Among them
were literary men, who have known how to present their
cause with power, and the noble spirit of truthfulness per-
vades the abolition literature. One may search in vain for
intentional misrepresentation. Abuse of opponents and criti-
cism of motives are common enough, but the historians of
the abolition movement have endeavored to relate a plain,
honest tale ; and the country has accepted them and their
work at their true value. Moreover, a cause and its pro-
moters that have been celebrated in the vigorous lines of
Lowell and sung in the impassioned verse of Whittier will
always* be of perennial memory."*
' Contempt was not the only hardship that the abolitionist
had to face when he admitted the fleeing black man within
his door, but he braved also the existing laws, and was some-
1 Life of Garrison, by his cMdren, Vol. I, p. 455. '
2 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 412.
' Oliver Johnson, William Lloyd Garrison and His Times, p. 310.
* History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, Vol. I, p. 75.
102 trnDBRGEOTIND RAILROAD
times compelled to suffer the consequences for disregarding
the slaveholder's claim of ownership. In 1842 the prosecu-
tion of John Van Zandt, of Hamilton County, Ohio, was
begun for attempting to aid nine slaves to escape. The case
was tried first in the Circuit Court of the United States, and
then taken by appeal to the Supreme Court. The suits were
not concluded when the defendant died in May, 1847. The
death of the plaintiff soon after left the case to be settled by
administrators, who agreed that the costs, amounting to one
thousand dollars, should be paid from the possessions of the
defendant.^ The judgments against Van Zandt under the
Fugitive Slave Law amounted to seventeen hundred dollars.^ /
In 1847 several members of a crowd that was instrumental
in preventing the seizure of a colored family by the name of
Crosswhite, at Marshall, Michigan, were indicted under the
Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. Two trials followed, and at the
second trial three persons were convicted, the verdict against
them amounting, with expenses and costs, to six thousand
dollars.^ In 1848 Daniel Kauffman, of Cumberland County,
Pennsylvania, sheltered a family of thirteen slaves in his barn,
and gave them transportation northward. He was tried, and
sentenced to pay two thousand dollars in fine and costs.
Although this decision was reversed by the United States
Supreme Court, a new suit was instituted in the Circuit
Court of the United States and a judgment was rendered
against Kauffman amounting with costs to more than four
thousand dollars. This sum was paid, in large part if not
altogether, by contributions.* In 1854 Rush R. Sloane, a
lawyer of Sandusky, Ohio, was tried for enabling seven fugi-
tives to escape after arrest by their pursuers. The two
claimants of the slaves instituted suit, but one only obtained
a judgment, which amounted to three thousand dollars and
1 Letter of N. L. Van Sandt, Clarinda, Iowa. (Mr. N. L. Van Sandt is
the son of John Van Zandt.) See also Wilson's Bise and Fall of the Slave
Power, Vol. I, pp. 475, 476 ; T. R. Cobb, Historical Sketches of Slavery,
p. 207 ; M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 42.
2 See pp. 274, 275, Chapter IX.
* Pamphlet proposing a " Defensive League of Freedom," signed by Ellis
Gray Loring and others, of Boston, pp. 6, 6. See Chapter IX, p. 276.
* Ibid. '
DEFENSIVE LEAGUE OE EREEDOM PEOPOSED 103
costs.^ The arrest of the fugitive, Anthony Burns, in Boston,
in the same year, was the occasion for indignation meetings at
Faneuil and ileionaon Halls, which terminated in an attempt
to rescue the unfortunate negro. Theodore Parker, Wendell
Phillips and T. W. Higginson took a conspicuous part in
these proceedings, and were indicted with others for riot.
When the first case was taken up the counsel for the defence
made a motion that the indictment be quashed. This was
sustained by the court, and the affair ended by all the cases
being dismissed.^
These and other similar cases arising from the attempted
enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act in various parts of the
country led to the proposal of a Defensive League of Free-
dom. A pamphlet, issued soon after the rendition of Burns,
by Ellis Gray Loring, Samuel Cabot, Jr., Henry J. Prentiss,
John A. Andrew and Samuel G. Howe, of Boston, and James
Freeman Clarke, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, stated the object
of the proposed league to be " to secure all persons claimed
as fugitives from slavery, and to all persons accused of violat-
ing the Fugitive Slave Bill the fullest legal protection ; and
also indemnify all such persons against costs, fines, and ex-
penses, whenever they shall seem to deserve such indemnifi-
cation." The league was to act as a " society of mutual pro-
tection and every member was to assume his portion of such
penalties as would otherwise fall with crushing weight on a
few individuals." Subscriptions were to be made by the mem-
bers of the organization, and five per cent of these subscrip-
tions was to be called for any year when it was needed.®
How much service this association actually performed, or
whether, indeed, it got beyond the stage of being merely pro-
posed is not known ; in any event, the fact is worth noting
that men of marked ability, distinction and social connection
1 5 McLean's United States Beports, p. 64 et seq. ; see also The Firelands
Pioneer, July, 1888 ; account by Rush R. Sloane, pp. 47-49 ; account by
H. E. Paden, pp. 21, 22 ; Chapter IX, pp. 276, 277.
2 Commonwealth, June 28, 1854 ; M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves,
pp. 45, 46 ; Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. II, pp. 443, 444.
See Chapter X, pp. 331-333.
= Pamphlet proposing a "Defensive League of Freedom," pp. 1, 3, 11
and 12.
104 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
were forming societies, like the Defensive League of Freedom,
and the various vigilance committees, for the purpose of de-
feating the Fugitive Slave Act.
Among the underground helpers there are a number of
notable persons that have admitted with seeming satisfaction
their complicity in disregarding the Fugitive Slave Law. A
letter from Frederick Douglass, the famous Maryland bond-
man and anti-slavery orator, says : " My connection with the
Underground Railroad began long before I left the South,
and was continued as long as slavery continued, whether I
lived in New Bedford, Lynn [both in Massachusetts], or
Rochester, N.Y. In the latter place I had as many as eleven
fugitives under my roof at one time." ^ In his autobiography
Mr. Douglass declares concerning his work in this connection :
"My agency was all the more exciting and interesting be-
cause not altogether free from danger. I could take not a
step in it without exposing myself to fine and imprisonment,
. . . but in face of this fact, I can say, I never did more con-
genial, attractive, fascinating, and satisfactory work."^ Dr.
Alexander M. Ross, a Canadian physician and naturalist, who
has received the decorations of knighthood from several of
the monarchs of Europe in recognition of his scientific dis-
coveries, spent a considerable part of his time from 1856 to
1862 in spreading a knowledge of the routes leading to Can-
ada among the slaves of the Soutli.^ Dr. Norton S. Towns-
hend, one of the organizers of the Ohio State University and
for years professor of agriculture in that institution, acted as
a conductor on the Underground Railroad while he was a
student of medicine in Cincinnati, Ohio.* Dr. Jared P. Kirt-
land, a distinguished physician and scientist of Ohio, kept a
station in Poland, Mahoning County, where he resided from
1823 to 1837.5
Harriet Beecher Stowe gained the intimate knowledge of
1 Letter of Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D.C., March 27, 1893.
" Life of Frederick Douglass, 1881, p. 271.
* Ross, Recollections and Experiences of an Abolitionist, pp. 30-44, 67-71,
121-132 ; also letters of Alexander M. Ross, Toronto, Ont.
* Conversations with Professor N. S. Townshend, Columhus, O.
6 Conversation with Miss Mary L. Morse, Poland, O., Aug. 11, 1892 j letter
of Mrs. Emma Kirtland Hine, Poland, O., Jan. 23, 1897.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
NOTABLE PERSONS AMONG UNDERGROUND HELPERS 105
the methods of the friends of the slave she displays in Uncle
Tom's Cabin thiough her association with some of the most
zealous abolitionists of southern Ohio. Her own house on
Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, was a refuge whence persons whose
types are portrayed in George and Eliza, the boy Jim and
his mother, were guided by her husband and brother a por-
tion of the way towards Canada.^ Colonel Thomas Went-
worth Higginson, the essayist and author, while stationed as
the pastor of a free church in Worcester, Massachusetts, from
1852 to 1858, often had fugitives directed to his care. In a
recent letter he writes of having received on one occasion a
"consignment of a young white slave woman with two white
children " from the Rev. Samuel J. May, who had put her
"into the hands, for escort, of one of the most pro-slavery
men in Worcester." The pro-slavery man, of course, did not
have a suspicion that he was acting as conductor on the
Underground Railroad.^
Joshua R. Giddings, for twenty years in Congress an ardent
advocate of the abolition of slavery, kept a particular chamber
in his house at Jefferson, Ohio, for the use of refugees.^ Some-
times when passing through Alliance, Ohio, Mr. Giddings
found opportunity to call upon his friend, I. Newton Peirce,
to whom he contributed money for the transportation of run-
away slaves by rail from that point to Cleveland.* What his
views were of the irritating law of 1850, he declared on the
floor of the House of Representatives, February 11, 1852, in
the following words : " . . . Let me say to Southern men ;
It is your privilege to catch your own slaves, if any one catches
them. . . . When you ask us to pay the expenses of arrest-
ing your slaves, or to give the President authority to appoint
officers to do that dirty work, give them power to compel our
people to give chase to the panting bondman, you overstep
the bounds of the Constitution, and there we meet you, and
there we stand and there we shall remain. We shall protest
' See Chapter X, pp.
2 Letter of T. W. Higginson, Dublin, N.H., July 24, 1896.
' Conversation witii J. Addison Giddings, Jefferson, 0., Aug. 9, 1892.
* Letter of I. Newton Peirce, Folcroft, Sliaron Hill P.O., Pa., Feb. 1,
1893.
106 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
against such indignity ; we shall proclaim our abhorrence of
such a law. Nor can you seal or silence our voices." ^
Thaddeus St^vens, a leading lawyer of Pennsylvania, who
rendered the cause of abolition distinguished service in Con-
gress, where he gained the title of the "great commoner,"
entered upon the practice of his profession at Gettysburg in
1816, and soon became known as a friend of escaping slaves.
His removal to Lancaster in 1842 did not take him off the
line of flight, and he continued to act as a helper. The woman
that " kept house for him for more than twenty years, and
nursed him at the close of his life, was one of the slaves he
helped to freedom." ^
James M. Ashley, member of Congress from Ohio for over
nine years, and his successor in the House, Richard Mott, a
Quaker, were confederates in their violation of the Slave Act
at Toledo, Ohio. Mr. Ashley began his service in behalf of
the blacks early in life. As a youth of seventeen in Kentucky,
he helped two companies across 'the Ohio River, one company
of seven persons, and the other of five.^ Sidney Edgerton,
who was elected to Congress from Ohio on the Free Soil
ticket in 1858, and four years after was appointed governor
of Montana Territory by President Lincoln, assisted his father
in the befriending of slaves at Tallmadge, Summit County,
Ohio.* Jacob M. Howard, afterwards United States senator
from Michigan, was one of the principal operators at Detroit.^
General Samuel Fessenden, of Maine, who received the nomina-
tion of the Liberty party for the governorship of his state, and
later for Congress, and was during forty years the leading
member of the bar in Maine, gave escaped bondmen reaching
Portland a hearty welcome to his house on India Street.^ In
Vermont there were a number of men prominent in public
affairs that were actively engaged in underground enterprises.
1 George W. Julian, T!ie Life of Joshua JR. Giddings, 1892, p. 289.
2 Smedley, Underground Railroad, pp. 36, 38, 46.
s Conversation with the Hon. James M. Ashley, Toledo, C, July, 1894.
* Conversation with ex-Governor Sidney Edgerton, Akron, O. , Aug. 16,
1895.
5 Conversation with Judge J. W. Finney, Detroit, Mich., July 27, 1895.
« Letter of S. T. Pickard, Portland, Me., Nov. 18, 1893.
NOTABLE PEESONS AMONG tTNDERGROUND HELPERS 107
Colonel Jonathan P. Miller,of Montpelier, who went to Greece,
and assisted that country in its uprising in the twenties, served
as a member of the Vermont legislature in 1833, and took part
in the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in 18-10, was among
the early helpers in New England. Lawrence Brainerd, for
several years candidate for governor of Vermont, and later
chosen to the United States Senate as a Free Soiler, gave
shelter to the wanderers at St. Albans, where thej'' were almost
within sight of "the Promised Land."^ Others were the
Rev. Alvah Sabin, elected to Congress in 1853, who kept a
station at the town of Georgia, the Hon. Joseph Poland of
Montpelier, the Hon. William Sowles of Swanton, the Hon.
John West of Morristown and the Hon. A. J. Russell of
Troy.2
Gerrit Smith, the famous philanthropist, kept open house
for fugitives in a fine old mansion at Peterboro, New York.
He was one of the prime movers in the organization of the
Liberty party at Arcade, New York, in 1840, and was its
candidate for the presidency in 1848 and in 1852. He was
elected to Consrress in 1853 and served one term. It is said
that during the decade 1850 to 1860 he " aided habitually in
the escape of fugitive slaves and paid the legal expenses of
persons accused of infractions of the Fugitive Slave Law."^
The Rev. Owen Lovejoy, brother of the martyr Elijah P.
Lovejoy, served four terms in the national House of Repre-
sentatives. On one occasion he was taunted by some pro-
slavery members of the House with being a " nigger-stealer."
In a speech made February 21, 1859, Mr. Lovejoy, referring
to these accusations, said : " Is it desired to call attention to
this fact — of my assisting fugitive slaves ? . . . Owen Love-
joy lives at Princeton, Illinois, three-quarters of a mile east
of the village, and he aids every fugitive that comes to his
door and asks it. Thou invisible demon of slavery, dost thou
think to cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give
bread to the hungry and shelter to the houseless ! I bid you
1 Letter of Aldis 0. Brainerd, St. Albans, Vt., Oct. 21, 1895.
2 Letter of Joseph Poland, Jlontpelier, Vt., April 7, 1897.
' O. B. Erothingham, Life of Gerrit Smith; National Cyclopedia of Ameri-
can Biography, Vol. II, pp. 322, 323.
108 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
defiance in the name of my God ! " ^ Josiah B. Grinnell, who
represented a central Iowa district in the Thirty-eighth and
the Thirty-ninth congresses, had a chamber in his house at
Grinnell that came to be called the "liberty room." John
Brown, while on his way to Canada with a band of Missouri
slaves, in the winter of 1858-1859, stacked his arms ia this
room, and his company of fugitives slept there.^ Mr. Grinnell
relates of the members of this party, " They came at night,
and were the darkest, saddest specimens of humanity I have
ever seen, glad to camp on the floor, while the veteran was
a night guard, with his dog and a miniature arsenal ready
for use on alarm. . . ." ^
Thurlow Weed, the distinguished journalist and political
manager, even in his busiest hours had time to afford relief
to the underground applicant. One who knew Mr. Weed
intimately relates the following incident : " On one occasion
when several eminent gentlemen were waiting [to see the
journalist] they were surprised and at first much vexed, by
seeing a negro promptly admitted. The negro soon reap-
peared, and hastily left the house, when it was learned that
he was a runaway slave, and had been aided in his flight for
liberty by the man who was too busy to attend to Cabinet
officers, but had time to say words of encouragement and
present means of support to a flying fugitive."* Sydney
Howard Gay, for several years managing editor of the New
York Tribune, and subsequently on the editorial staff of the
New York Post and the Chicago Tribune, was an efficient
agent of the Underground Railroad while in charge of the
Anti-Slavery Standard, which he conducted in New York
City from 1844 to 1857.^
Among the clergymen that made it a part of their religious
duty to minister to the needs of the exiles from the South,
were John Rankin, Samuel J. May and Theodore Parker.
I Pamphlet of the Rev. D. Heagle, entitled TTie Great Anti- Slavery Agi-
tator, Hon. Owen Lovejoy, pp. 16, 17, 34, 35. *
" J. B. Grinnell, Men and Events of Forty Years, p. 207.
8 Ibid., pp. 217, 218.
* T. W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, 1884, Vol. II, p. 238.
' Wilson, Else and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. II, p. 52.
NOTABLE PERSONS AMONG UNDERGROUND HELPERS 109
Mr. Rankin, a native of Tennessee, early developed his anti-
slavery views in Kentucky, where from 1817 to 1821 he
served as pastor of two Presbyterian churches at the town of
Carlisle. During the next forty-four yeare he resided at Rip-
ley, Ohio, in a neighborhood frequented by runaways.^ Doubt-
less he became a patron of these midnight visitors at the time
of his location in Ripley. In 1828 he established himself in
a house situated upon the crest of a hill just back of the town
and overlooking the Ohio River. For many years the lights
beaming through the windows of this parsonage were hailed
by slaves fleeing from the soil of Kentucky as beacons to guide
them to a haven of safety.^ . '
Samuel J. May, for many years a prominent minister in
the Unitarian Church, writes : " So long ago as 1834, when I
was living in the eastern part of Connecticut, I had fugitives
addressed to my care. . . . Even after I came to reside in
Syracuse [New York] I had much to do as a station-keeper
or conductor on the Underground Railroad, until slavery was
abolished by the proclamation of President Lincoln. . . .
Fugitives came to me from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky,
Tennessee and Louisiana. They came, too, at all hours of
day and night, sometimes comfortably, yes, and even hand-
somely clad, but generally in clothes every way unfit to be
worn, and in some instances too unclean and loathsome to be
admitted into my house." ^
Theodore Parker, the learned theologian and iconoclast of
Boston, often deserted his study that he might work in the
cause of humanity. In his Journal, under the date October
23, 1850, Mr. Parker wrote : " . . . The first business of the
anti-slavery men is to help the fugitives ; we, like Christ, are
to seek and save that which is lost." * In an unsigned note
written in 1851 to his friend Dr. Francis, Mr. Parker says : —
... I have got some nice books (old ones) coming across
the water. But, alas me ! such is the state of the poor fugitive
1 William Bimey, James G. Birney and Sis Times, p. 435.
* J. C. Leggett, in a pamphlet entitled Bev. John Rankin, 1892, pp. 8, 9 ;
see also History of Brown County, Ohio, p. 443.
• BecoUections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 297.
♦ John Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, 1864, p. 95.
110 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
slaves, that I must attend to living men, and not to dead books,
and all this winter my time has been occupied with these poor
souls. The Vigilance Committee appointed me spiritual counsellor
of all fugitive slaves in Massachusetts while in peril. . . . The
Fugitive Slave Law has cost me some months of time already. I
have refused about sixty invitations to lecture aud delayed the
printing of my book — for that ! Truly the land of the pilgrims
is in great disgrace !
Yours truly.'
Among the underground workers there were two whose
principal object in life seems to have been to assist fugitive
slaves. These two organizers of underground tiavel were
Levi Coffin, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Thomas Garrett, of Wil-
mington, Delaware, both lifelong members of the Society of
Friends, both capable business men, both able to number the
unfortunates they had succored in terius of thousands.
Thomas Garrett was born in Pennsylvania in 1789, and
espoused the cause of emancipation at the age of eighteen,
when a colored woman in the employ of his father's family
was kidnapped. He succeeded in rescuing the woman from
the hands of her abductors, and from that time on made it
his special mission to aid negroes in their attempts to gain
freedom. In 1822 he removed to Wilmington, Delaware, and
during the next forty years his efforts in behalf of fugitives
were unremitting. He was not so fortunate as Levi Coffin
in escaping the penalties of the Fugitive Slave Law; an open
violation of the law got him into difficulty in 1848. He was
tried on four counts before Judge Taney, and his entire prop-
erty was swallowed up in fines amounting to eight thousand
dollars. There is a tradition that the presiding judge admon-
ished Garrett to take his loss as a lesson and in the future
to desist from breaking the laws ; whereupon the aged Quaker
stoutly replied : " Judge, thou hast not left me a dollar, but
I wish to say to thee, and to all in this court-room, that if
any one knows of a fugitive who wants a shelter and a friend,
send him to Thomas Garrett and he will befriend him." ^ Al-
1 John Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, 1864, p. 96.
2 Lillie B. 0. Wyman, in New England Magazine, March, 1896, p. 112 ;
William Still, Underground Bailroad Records, pp. 623-641 ; R. C. Smedley,
THOMAS GARRETT AND LEVI COFFIN 111
though sixty years of age when misfortune befel him, Mr.
Garrett was successful in again acquiring a competence
through the kindness of fellow-townsmen in advancing him
capital with which to make a fresh start. Though satisfied,
he was wont to think that his real work in life was never
finished. " The war came a little too soon for my business.
I wanted to help off three thousand slaves. I had only got up
to twenty-seven hundred ! "
/ Mr. Coffin was a native of North Carolina. Born in 1798,
he was while still a boy moved to assist in the escape of
slaves by witnessing the cruel treatment the negroes were
compelled to endure. In 1826 he settled in Wayne County,
Indiana, on the line of the Underground Road, and such was
his activity that his house at New Garden (now Fountain
City) soon became the converging point of three principal
routes from Kentucky. In 1847 Mr. Coffin removed to
Cincinnati for the purpose of opening a store where goods
produced by free labor only should be sold. His relations
with the humane work were maintained, and the genial but
fearless Quaker came to be known generally by the fictitious
but happy title. President of the Underground Railroad. It
has been said of Mr. Coffin that " for thirty-three years he
received into his house more than one hundred slaves every
year." ^ In 1863 the Quaker philanthropist assisted in the
establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau. In the following
year and again in 1867, he visited Europe as agent for the
Western Freedmen's Aid Commission. When the adoption of
the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution was celebrated
in Cincinnati by colored citizens and their friends, Mr. Coffin
was one of those called upon by the chairman to address
the great meeting. In response, the veteran station-keeper
explained how he had obtained the title of President of the
Underground Road. He said, " The title was given to me
by slave-hunters, who could not find their fugitive slaves
after they got into my hands. I accepted the office thus
conferred upon me, and . . . endeavored to perform my
Underground Bailroad, pp. 237-245 ; M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves,
p. 60.
1 Beminiscences of Levi Coffin, 2d ed., p. 694.
112 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
duty faithfully. Government has now taken the work out
of our hands. The stock of the Underground Railroad has
gone down in the market, the business is spoiled, the road is
now of no further use." ^ He then amid much applause
resigned his office, and declared the operations of the Under-
ground Railroad at an end.
^ Beminiscences of Levi Coffin, p. 712. ,
3^
CHAPTER V
8T0DY OP THE MAP OF THE UNDERGEOUND EAILEOAD
SYSTEM
Thekb are many features of the Underground Railroad
that can best be understood by means of a geographical
representation of the system. Such a representation it has
been possible to make by piecing together the scraps of
information in regard to various routes and parts of routes
gathered from the reminiscences of a large number of abo-
litionists. The more or less limited area in which each
agent operated was the field within which he was not "only
willing, but was usually anxious, to confine his knowledge
of underground activities. Ignorance of one's accomplices
beyond a few adjoining stations was naturally felt to be a
safeguard. The local character of the information resulting
from such precautions places the investigator under the
necessity of patiently studyiiig his materials for what may
be called the cumulative evidence in regard to the geography
of the system. It is because the evidence gathered has been
cumulative and corroborative that a general map can be pre-
pared. But a map thus constructed cannot, of course, be
considered complete, for it cannot be supposed that after the
lapse of a generation representatives of all the important
lines and branches could be discovered. Nevertheless, how-
ever much the map may fall short of showing the system in
its completeness, it will be found to help the reader materially
in his attempt to realize the extent and importance of this
movement.
The underground system, in accordance with the statement
of James Freeman Clarke, is commonly understood to have
. extended from Kentucky and Virginia across Ohio, and from
Maryland through Pennsylvania, New York and New Eng-
I 113
114 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
land to Canada.i But this desciiption is inadequate, for it
fails to include the states west of Ohio. Henry Wilson
extends the field westward by asserting that the " territory
embraced by the Middle States and all the Western States
east of the Mississippi . . . was dotted over with ' stations,' "
and " covered with a network of imaginary routes, not found
... in the railway guides or on the railway maps;"^ and
in another place he quotes the Rev. Asa Turner, a home
missionary, who went to Illinois in 1830, who says: "Lines
were formed through Iowa and Illinois, and passengers were
carried from station to station . . . till they reached the
Canada line."^ The association of Kansas with the two
states just named as a channel for th» escape of runaways
from the southwestern slave section, is made by Mr. Richard
J. Hinton.* The addition of one other state. New Jersey, is
necessary to complete the list of Northern states involved in
the Underground Railroad system.® This region, which forms
nearly one quarter of the present area of the Union, consti-
tuted the irregular zone of free soil intervening between
Southern slavery and Canadian liberty.
The conditions that determined the number and distribu-
tion of stations throughout this region are clearly discernible
even in the incomplete data with which we are forced to be
content. It is safe to assert that in Ohio the conditions
favorable to the development of a large number of stations,
and the dissemination of these throughout the state, existed
in a measure and combination not reproduced in the case of
any other state. Ohio's geographical boundary gave it a long
line of contact with slave territory. It bordered Kentucky
with about one hundred and sixty miles of river frontage;
and Virginia with perhaps two hundred and twenty-five miles
or more, and crossings were made at almost any point. The
character of the early settlements of Ohio is a factor that must
not be overlooked. The northern and eastern parts of the
5 Anti-Slavery Days, p. 81 ; M. G. MoDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 61.
* Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. II, p. 66.
"Ibid., p. 68.
* John Brov)n and His Men, p. 173.
* See pp. 123-126, this chapter.
NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION OF STATIONS 115
state were dotted over with many little communities where
New England ideas prevailed ; the southern and southwestern
parts came in time to be well sprinkled with the homes of
Quakers, Covenanters and anti-slavery Southerners and some
negroes ; the central and southeastern portions contained a
number of Quaker settlements. The remote position and
sparse settlement of the northwestern section of the state
probably explain the failure to find many traces of routes in
that region. Family ties, church fellowship, an aggressive
anti-slavery leadership, — journalistic and political, — the leav-
ening influence of institutions like Oberlin College, Western
Reserve College and Geneva College, all contributed to propa-
gate a sentiment that was ready to support the fleeing slave ;
and thus Ohio became netted over with a large number of
interlacing lines of escape for fugitive slaves. The western
portions of Pennsylvania and New York, and the eastern por-
tion of Indiana shared with Ohio these favorable conditions,
and one is not surprised to find many stations in these regions.
The same'is true of northern and Avest^central Illinois, where
many persons of New England descent settled. The few
lines known in southwestern Illinois were developed by a few
Covenanter communities. The geographical position of the
most southern portions of Illinois and Indiana determined the
character of the population settling there, and thus rendered
underground enterprises in those regions more than ordinarily
dangerous. There may have been stations scattered through
those parts, but if so, one can scarcely hope now to discover
them. The great number of routes in southeastern Pennsyl-
vania, and the stream of slave emigration flowing through
New Jersey to New York are to be attributed largely to the
untiring activity of a host of Quakers, assisted by some
negroes. The cooperation of some zealous station-keepers
in the neighboring slave territory seems to account partly for
the multitude of stations that appear upon the map between
the lower Susquehanna and Delaware rivers. Whether there
was any underground work done in the central and northern
parts of Pennsylvania is not known ; the indications are that
there was not much; the stations said to have existed at
Milroy, Altoona, Work's Place and Smicksburg probably
lie UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
connected with lines running in a northwesterly direction to
Lake Erie. This is known to have been true of the stations
at Greensburg, Indiana, Clearfield and intermediate points,
which were linked in with stations leading to Meadville and
Erie. The remoteness of New York and of the New England
states from the slaveholding section explains the comparar
tively small number of stations found in those states. Iowa,
which bordered on slave territory, had only a small number
of stations, for it was a new region, not long open to occupa-
tion ; and only the southern part of the state was in the direct
line of travel, which here was mostly eastward. There were
a few places of deportation in southeastern Wisconsin for
fugitives that had avoided Chicago, and followed the lake-
shore or the Illinois River farther northward. A rather nar-
row strip of Michigan, adjoining Indiana and Ohio, was
dotted with stations.
There were friends of the discontented slave in the South
as well as in the North, although it cannot be said, upon the
basis of the small amount of evidence at hand, that these
were sufficient in number or so situated as to maintain regu-
lar lines of escape northward. Doubtless many acts of kind-
ness to slaves were performed by individual Southerners, but
those were not, in most of the cases, known as the acts of
persons cooperating to help the slave from point to point un-
til freedom and safety should be reached. That there were
regular helpers in the South engaged in concerted action,
Samuel J. May, a station-keeper of wide information con-
cerning the Road, freely asserts. In 1869 he wrote, " There
have always been scattered throughout the slaveholding
states individuals who have abhorred slavery, and have
pitied the victims of our American despotism. These per-
sons have known, or have taken pains to find out, others at
convenient distances northward from their abodes who sym-
pathized with them in commiserating the slaves. These
sympathizers have known or heard of others of like mind
still farther north, who again have had acquaintances in the
free states that they knew would help the fugitive on his
way to liberty. Thus lines of friends at longer or shorter
distances were formed from many parts of the South to the
ITS SOUTHERN BRANCHES 117
very borders of Canada. . . . " ^ It is not easy to substan-
tiate this statement ; and all that will be attempted here is
the presentation of such examples as have been found of un-
derground work on the part of persons living south of Mason
and Dixon's line. Mr. Stephen B. Weeks is authority for
the statement that " Vestal Coffin organized the Underground
Railroad near the present Guilford College in 1819," and
that " Addison Coffin, his son, entered its service as a con-
ductor in early youth. . . . " ^ Levi Coffin, Vestal's cousin,
helped many slaves from this region to reach the North
before he moved to Indiana in 1826.^ In Delaware there
seems to have been a well-defined route upon which the
houses of John Hunn, of Middletown,* Ezekiel Hunn, of
Camden, and Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington,^ were impor-
tant stations. John Hunn speaks of himself as having been
"superintendent of the Underground Railroad from Wil-
mington down the Peninsula." ^ Maryland also had its line
— perhaps its lines — of Road. One route ran overland
from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia. Mr. W. B. Wil-
liams, of Charlotte, Michigan, throws some light on this
route. He says, " My uncle, Jacob Bigelow, was for several
years previous to the war a resident of Washington, D.C.
He was an abolitionist, and general manager of the Under-
ground Railway from Washington to Philadelphia. . . ." ^
Mr. Robert Purvis tells of two market-women that were
agents of the Underground Road in Baltimore, forwarding
fugitives to the Vigilance Committee with which he was
connected in Philadelphia.* The Quaker City was also a
central station for points still farther south. Vessels en-
gaged in the lumber trade plying between Newberne, North
Carolina, and Philadelphia, were often supplied with slave
passengers by the son of a slaveholder living at Newberne.®
1 Eecollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, pp. 296, 297.
' Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 242.
• Ibid., p. 242. See also Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, pp. 12-31.
• Smedley, Underground Bailroad, pp. 238, 244. ^ n,ia., p. 326.
0 Letter of John Hunn, Wyoming, Del., Sept. 16, 1893.
' In the Key to Uncle TonVs Cabin Is the facsimile of a letter addressed
to him by a slave, pp. 171, 172.
' E. C. Smedley, Underground Bailroad, p. 355, letter from Robert Purvis
printed therein. ' Chapter III, p. 68.
118 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
A slave at Petersburg, Virginia, was agent for that section
of country, directing fugitives to William Still in Philadel-
phia.i Eliza Bains, a slave-woman of Portsmouth, Virginia,
sent numbers of her people to Boston and New Bedford by
boat.2 Frederick Douglass declared that his connection
with the Underground Railroad began long before he left the
South.3 Harriet Tubman, the abductor, made use of stations
at Camden, Dover, Blackbird, Middleton and New Castle in
the State of Delaware on her way to Wilmington and Philar
delphia.* The testimony of these various witnesses seems to
show that underground routes existed in the South, but it
is not sufficient in amount to enable one to trace extended
courses of travel through the slaveholding states.
It is apparent from the map that the numerous tributaries
of the Ohio and the great valleys of the Appalachian range
afforded many tempting paths of escape. These natural
routes from slavery have been recognized and defined by a
recent writer.^ " One," he says, " was that of the coast south
of the Potomac, whose almost continuous line of swamps
from the vicinity of Norfolk, Va., to the northern border of
Florida afforded a refuge for many who could not escape and
became 'marooned' in their depths, while giving facility to
the more enduring to:.work their way out to the north star
land. The great Appalachian range and its abutting moun-
tains were long a rugged, lonely, but comparatively safe
route to freedom. It was used, too, for many years. Doubt-
less a knowledge of that fact, for John Brown was always
an active railroad man, had very much to do, strategically
considered, with the Capfain's decision to begin operations
therein. Harriet Tubman''. . . was a constant user of the
Appalachian route in her ^^fforts to aid escaping slaves.^
1 Wm. still, Underground JRailroaSi, p. 41. "The Underground Railroad
brought away large numbers of passeiiMrs from Richmond, Petersburg, and
Norfolk, and not a few of them lived cosaparatively within a hair's breadth
of the auction block." Wm. Still, Under^ound Bailroad Records, p. 141.
2 Conversation with Mrs. Elizabeth Cooley, a fugitive from Norfolk, Va.,
Boston, Mass., April 8, 1897.
2 Letter of Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D.C., March 27, 1893.
* Conversation with Mrs. Tubman, Boston, Mass., April 8, 1897.
' R. J. Hinton, John Brown and Mis Men, pp. 172, 173.
^ Harriet Tubman has told the author that she did not travel by the
MAIN CHANNELS OF FLIGHT OF SLAVES 119
, . . Underground Railroad operations culminating chiefly
at Cleveland, Sandusky, and Detroit, led by broad a,nd defined
routes through Ohio to the border of Kentucky. Through
that State, into the heart of the Cumberland Mountains,
northern Georgia, east Tennessee, and northern Alabama,
the limestone caves of the region served a useful purpose.
. . . The Ohio-Kentucky routes probably served more fugi-
tives than others in the North. The valley of the Missis-
sippi was the most westerly channel, until Kansas opened a
bolder way of escape from the southwest slave section."
These were the main channels of flight from the slave states ;
but it must be remembered that escapes were continually
taking place along the entire frontier between the two
sections of the Union, the drift of travel being constantly
towards those points where the homes of abolitionists or
where negro settlements indicated initial stations on lines
running north to freedom. The border counties of the slave
states were thus subject to a steady loss of their dissatisfied
bondmen. This condition is well represented in the case of
several counties of Maryland, concerning which Mr. Smedley
obtained information. He says, "The counties of Fred-
erick, Carroll, Washington, Hartford and Baltimore, Md.,
emptied their fugitives into York and Adams counties across
the line in Pennsylvania. The latter two counties had set-
tlements of Friends and abolitionists. The slaves learned
who their friends were in that part of the Free State; and it
was as natural for those aspiring to liberty to move in that
direction as for the waters of brooks to move toward larger
streams."^
Along the southern margin of the free states began those
weU-defined trails or channels that have lent themselves to
mountain route. In his book entitled The Underground Bailroad (p. 37),
Mr. E. C. Smedley illustrates the value of the AUeghanies to the slaves of
the regions through which they extend: "WilUam and Phoehe Wright re-
sided during their entire Uves in a very old settlement of Friends, near the
southern slope of South Mountain, a spur of the AUeghanies, which extends
into Tennessee. This location placed them directly in the way to render
great and valuable aid to fugitives, as hundreds, guided by that mountain
range northward, came into Pennsylvania, and were directed to their home."
' Underground Bailroad, p. 36. ,
120 UNDERGKOUOT) RAILROAD
representation upon the large map given herewith. In deal-
ing with the tracings shown upon this map it will be best to
consider the territory as divided into three regions, the first
comprising the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New
York ; the second, the New England states ; and the third,
the five states created out of the Northwest Territory. This
arrangement will, perhaps, admit of the introduction of some
system into the discussion of what might otherwise prove a
complicated subject.
In point of time underground work seems to have devel-
oped first in eastern Pennsylvania.^ Regular routes of travel
began to be formed in the vicinity of Philadelphia about the
middle of the first decade of the present century. It is said
that "some cases of kidnapping and shooting of fugitives
who attempted to escape occurred in Columbia, Pa., in 1804.
This incited the people of that town, who were chiefly
Friends or their descendants, to throw around the colored
people the arm of protection, and even to assist those who
were endeavoring to escape from slavery. . . . This gave
origin to that organized system of rendering aid to fugitives
which was afterward known as the ' Underground Railroad.' "
Thus begun, the service rapidly extended, being greatly
favored by the character of the population in southeastern
Pennsylvania, which was largely Quaker, with here and
there some important settlements of manumitted slaves. It
was on account of the large number of runaways early resort-
ing to Columbia that it became necessary to have an under-
standing with regard to places of entertainment for them
along lines leading to the Eastern states and to Canada,
whither most of the fugitives were bound.^ There seems to
have been scarcely any limitation upon the number of per-
sons in Lancaster, Chester and Delaware counties willing to
assume agencies for the forwarding of slaves ; hence this
region became the field through which more routes were de-
i See pp. 33 and 34, Chapter II.
2 R. C. Smedley, Underground Railroad, pp, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. For a
description of the routes of this region, our dependence is almost wholly
upon Mr. Smedley, whose intimate knowledge of them was ohtained by con-
versation and correspondence with many of the operators. Ibid., Preface,
P- X.
ROUTES OF EASTERN PENNSTLVAOTA 121
veloped in proportion to its extent than any other area in
the Northern. states. It will be necessary to make use of a
special map of the region in order to follow out the principal
channels of escape and to discover the centres from which
the Canada routes sprung.^ West of the Susquehanna River
Gettysburg and York were the stations chiefly sought by
slaves escaping from the border counties of Maryland.
Along the western shore of the Chesapeake runaways passed
northward to Havre de Grace, where they usually crossed the
Susquehanna, and with others from the Eastern Shore found
their way to established stations in the southern part of Lan-
caster and Chester counties in Pennsylvania. From the
territory adjacent to the Delaware the movement was to
Wilmington, and thence north through Chester and Dela-
ware counties. The routes developed in the three regions
just indicated formed three systems of underground travel,
the first of which may be called the western, the second, the
middle, and the third, the eastern system. These systems
comprised, besides the main roads indicated in heavy lines
upon the map, numerous side-tracks and branches shown by
the light lines. Their common goal was Phoenixville, the
home of Elijah F. Pennypacker, and from here fugitives
were sent to Philadelphia, Norristown, Quakertown, Reading
and other stations as occasion required. While Phoenixville
may be regarded as the central station for the three systems
mentioned, it did not receive all the negroes escaping through
this section, and Smedley says that " Hundreds were sent to
the many branch stations along interlacing routes, and hun-
dreds of others were sent from Wilmington, Columbia, and
stations westward direct to the New England States and
Canada. Many of these passed through the hands of the
Vigilance Committee connected with the anti-slavery office
in Philadelphia," ^ From this point one outlet led overland
across New Jersey to Jersey City and New York ; another
1 The special map of these counties ■will be found in a comer of the
general map.
2 The Underground Railroad, p. 209. For a description of the secret
paths in southeastern Pennsylvania, see Smedley's book, pp. 30, 31 , 32, 33,
34, 50, 53, 77, 85, 89, 90, 100, 132, 137, 142, 164, 172, 191, 192, 208, 217, 218,
219, etc.
122 TINDEKGEOUND RAILROAD
outlet from Philadelphia, was the Reading Railroad, which
also carried refugees from various stations along its course.
How many steam railway extensions may have been con-
nected with the underground tracks of southeastern Pennsyl-
vania cannot be discovered. One such extension was the
Northern Central Railroad from Harrisburg across the state
to Elmira, New York.^ Another trans-state route in eastern
Pennsylvania appears to have had its origin at or near Sads-
bury, Chester County, and to have run overland to Bing-
hamton. New York.^ The intermediate stations along this
pathway are not known, although some disconnected places
of resort in northeastern Pennsylvania^ may have consti-
tuted a section of it. Lines of northern travel for fugitives
also passed through Bucks County, but Dr. Edward H.
Magill, formerly President of Swarthmore College, thinks
these were " less clearly marked " than those running through
Chester and Lancaster counties. He finds that friends of
the slave in the middle section of Bucks County generally
forwarded the negroes to Quakertown or even as far north,
by stage or private conveyance, as Stroudsburg. From this
point they sometimes went to Montrose or Friendsville, in
Susquehanna County, near the southern boundary of the
State of New York,* whence, together with fugitives from
Wilkesbarre, and, perhaps, the Lehigh Valley, they were sent
on to Gerrit Smith, at Peterboro in central New York, and
thence to Canada.^
At the other end of Pennsylvania several routes and sec-
tions of routes have been discovered. The most important
of these seem to have been the roads resulting from the con-
vergence of at least three well-defined lines of escape at
Uniontown in southwestern Pennsylvania from the neigh-
1 Letters of Mrs. Susan L. Crane, Elmira, N.Y., Aug. 27, and Sept. 14
and 23, 1896 ; letters of John W. Jones, Elmira, N.Y., Dec. 17, 1896, and
Jan. 16, 1897.
2 Smedley, Underground Railroad, p. 91.
' See the general map.
* Article by Dr. Magill, entitled " When Men were Sold. The Under-
ground Railroad in Bucks County," in The Bucks County Intelligencer,
Feb. 3, 1898. Same article in the Friends' Intelligencer, Feb. 26, 1898.
6 Letter of Horace Brewster, Montrose, Pa., March 20, 1898.
ROUTES OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA 123
boring counties of Virginia and Maryland. A map drawn by
Mr. Amos M. JolIifEe, of Uniontown, shows that there were
two courses leading northward from his neighborhood, both
of which terminated at Pittsburg.^ From this point fugitives
seem to have been sent to Cleveland by rail, or to have been
directed to follow the Alleghany or the Ohio and its tributa-
ries north. Investigation proves that friends were not lacking
at convenient points to help them along to the main termi-
nals for this region, namely, Erie and Buffalo, or across the
border of the state to the much-used routes of the Western
Reserve.^ East of the Alleghany River significant traces of
underground work are found running in a northeasterly di-
rection from Greensburg through Indiana County to Clear-
field,^ a distance of seventy-five miles, and from Cumberland,
Maryland, through Bedford and PleasantvUle to Altoona,*
about the same distance. These fragmentary routes may
have had connections with some of the fragmentary lines of
western New York. From Clearfield an important branch is
known to have run northwest to Shippenville and Franklin,
and so to Erie, a place of deportation on the lake of the same
name.^
New Jersey was intimately associated with Philadelphia
and the adjoining section in the underground system, and
afforded at least three important outlets for runaways from
the territory west of the Delaware River. Our knowledge of
these outlets is derived solely from the testimony of the Rev.
Thomas Clement Oliver, who, like his father, travelled the
New Jersey routes many times as a guide or conductor.^
Probably the most important of these routes was that leading
1 Letter of Mr. JoUiffe, Nov. 17, 1895.
2 Letter of John F. Hogue, Greenville, Pa., Nov. 25, 1895 ; letter of S. P.
Stewart, Clark, Mercer Co., Pa., Dec. 26, 1895 ; letter of W. W. Walker,
Makanda, Jackson Co., Bl., March 14, 1896 ; note-book of Joseph S. White,
of New Castle, Pa., containing " Some Reminiscences of Slavery Times."
" Letters of C. P. Rank, Cush Creek, Indiana Co., Pa., Dec. 25, 1896, and
Jan. 4, 1897 ; letter of William Atcheson, DuBois, Pa., Jan. 11, 1897.
* Letter of Wyett Perry, Bedford, Pa., Dec. 23, 1895 ; letter of John W.
Rouse, Bedford, Pa., Nov. 25, 1895 ; letter of William M. Hall, Bedford, Pa.,
Nov. 30, 1895.
« Conversation with William Edwards, Amherstburg, Ont., Aug. 3, 1895.
• Conversation with Mr. Oliver, Windsor, Ont., Aug. 2, 1895.
124 UNDERGEOUND RAILROAD
from Philadelphia to Jersey City and New York. From
Philadelphia the runaways were taken across the Delaware
River to Camden, where Mr. Oliver lived, thence they were
conveyed northeast following the course of the river to Bur-
lington, and thence in the same direction to Bordentown. In
Burlington, sometimes called Station A, a short stop was
made for the purpose of changing horses after the rapid drive
of twenty miles from Philadelphia. The Bordentown station
was denominated Station B east. Here the road took a more
northerly direction to Princeton, where horses were again
changed and the journey continued to New Brunswick.
Just east of New Brunswick the conductors sometimes met
with opposition in attempting to cross the Raritan River on
their way to Jersey City. To avoid such interruption the
conductors arranged with Cornelius Cornell, who lived on
the outskirts of New Brunswick, and, presumably, near the
river, to notify them when there were slave-catchers or spies
at the regular crossing. On receiving such information they
took a by-road leading to Perth Amboy, whence their prot^-
g^s could be safely forwarded to New York City. When the
way was clear at the Raritan the company pursued its course
to Rahway ; here another relay of horses was obtained and
the journey continued to Jersey City, where, under the care
of John Everett, a Quaker, or his servants, they were taken
to the Forty-second Street railroad station, now known as
the Grand Central, provided with tickets, and placed on a
through train for Syracuse, New York. The second route
had its origin on the Delaware River forty miles below Phila-
delphia, at or near Salem. This line, like the others to be
mentioned later, seems to have been tributary to the Phila-
delphia route traced above. Nevertheless, it had an indepen-
dent course for sixty miles before it connected with the more
northern route at Bordentown. This distance of sixty miles
was ordinarily travelled in three stages, the first ending at
Woodbury, twenty-five miles north of Salem, although the
trip by wagon is said to have added ten miles to the estimated
distance between the two places ; the second stage ended at
Evesham Mount ; and the third, at Bordentown. The third
route was called, from its initial station, the Greenwich line.
EOUTES OF NEW JEESEY AND NEW YORK 125
This station is vividly described as having been made up of a
circle of Quaker residences enclosing a swampy place that
swarmed with blacks. One may surmise that it made a
model station. Slaves were transported at night across the
Delaware River from the vicinity of Dover, in boats marked
by a yellow light hung below a blue one, and were met some
distance out from the Jersey shore by boats showing the same
lights. Landed at Greenwich, the fugitives were conducted
north twenty-five miles to Swedesboro, and thence about the
same distance to Evesham Mount. From this point they
were taken to Mount Holly, and so into the northern or
Philadelphia route. Still another branch of this Philadel-
phia line is known. It constitutes the fourth road, and
is described by Mr. Robert Purvis ^ as an extension of a route
through Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that entered Trenton,
New Jersey, from Newtown, and ran directly to New Bruns-
wick and so on to New York.
Mr. Eber M. Pettit, for many years a conductor of the
Underground Railroad in western New York,^ asserts that
the Road had four main lines across his state, and scores of
laterals,^ but he nowhere attempts to identify these lines for
the benefit of those less well informed than himself. Con-
cerning what may be supposed to have been one of the lines,
he speaks as follows : " The first well-established line of the
U. G. R. R. had its southern terminus in Washington, D.C.,
and extended in a pretty direct route to Albany, N.Y., thence
radiating in all directions to all the New England states,
and to many parts of this state. . . . The General Super-
intendent resided in Albany. . . . He was once an active
member of one of the churches in Fredonia. Mr. T., his
agent in Washington City, was a very active and efficient
man ; the Superintendent at Albany was in daily communi-
cation by mail with him and other subordinate agents at all
points along the line." * Frederick Douglass, who was
familiar with this Albany route during the period of his
residence in Rochester, describes it as running through Phil-
1 Conversation with Jlr. Purvis, Philadelphia, Dec. 23, 1895.
^ Sketches in the History of the Underground Bailroad, 1879, Preface,
p. xvi. 3 76 id. , p. xiv. * TSzU, p. 34.
126 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
adelphia, New York, Albany, Rochester, and thence to Can-
ada ; and he gives the name of the person at each station
that was most closely associated in his mind with the work
of the station. Thus, he says that the "fugitives were
received in Philadelphia by William Still, by him sent to
New York, where they were cared for by Mr. David Ruggles,
and afterwards by Mr. Gibbs, . . . thence to Stephen Myers
at Albany ; thence to J. W. Loguen, Syracuse ; thence to
Frederick Douglass, Rochester ; and thence to Hiram
Wilson, St. Catherines, Canada West." ^ Not all the ne-
groes travelling by this route went as far as Rochester;
some were turned north at Syracuse to the port of Oswego,
where they took boat for Canada.^ The Rev. Charles B. Ray,
a member of the Vigilance Committee of New York City,
and editor of The Colored American, has left some testimony
which corroborates that just given. He knew of a regular
route stretching from Washington, by way of Baltimore and
Philadelphia, to New York, thence following the Hudson to
Albany and Troy, whence a branch ran westward to Utica,
Syracuse and Oswego, with an extension from Syracuse to
Niagara Falls. New York was a kind of receiving point
from which fugitives were assisted to Albany and Troy, or,
as sometimes happened, to Boston and New Bedford, or,
when considerations of safety warranted it, were permitted
to pass to Long Island.^ The lines that are said to have
radiated from Albany are mentioned neither by Mr. Doug-
lass nor by Mr. Ray, but we know from other witnesses
that some of the fugitives sent to Troy found their way to
places of refuge north and east. Mr. Martin I. Townsend, of
Troy, writes that fugitives arriving at that city were supplied
with money and forwarded either to Suspension Bridge, on
the Niagara River, or by way of Vermont and Lake Cham-
plain to Rouses Point.* It seems probable that another
1 Letter of Frederick Douglass, Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D.C., Marcli 27,
1893.
2 Letter of Joseph A. Allen, Medfield, Mass., Aug. 10, 1896.
' Letter of Florence and Cordelia H. Ray, Woodside, L.I., April 12, 1897.
See Sketch of the Life of Sev. Chas. B. Say, written by the Misses Ray.
• Letters of Martin 1. Townsend, Troy, N.Y., Sept. 4 and 15, 1896.
ROUTES OF NEW YORK 127
brancli of the secret thoroughfare followed the valley of the
Hudson from Troy to the farm of John Brown, near North
Elba among the Adirondacks. Mr. Richard H. Dana visited
this frontier home of Brown one summer, and was informed
by his guide that the country about there belonged to Gerrit
Smith ; that it was settled for the most part by families of
fugitive slaves, who were engaged in farming ; and that
Brown held the position of a sort of ruler among them. The
view was therefore credited that this neighborhood was one
of the termini of the Underground Railroad." ^
Gerrit Smith, the friend and counsellor of Brown, lived at
Peterboro, in central New York, where his house was an
important station for runaway slaves. His open invitation
to fugitives to come to Peterboro gave the post he main-
tained great publicity, and many negroes resorted thither.
From Peterboro they were sent in Mr. Smith's wagon to
Oswego.2 A little to the east and north of this place of de-
portation there were what may perhaps be called emergency
stations at or near Mexico, New Haven, Port Ontario ^ and
Cape Vincent.* From the place last named, and perhaps also
from Port Ontario, fugitives took boat for Kingston.^ A
route that came into operation much later than that with
1 0. F. Adams, Life of Bickard Heni-y Dana, Vol. I, p. 155 ; History of
Madison County, New York, by Mrs. X.. M. Hammond, p. 721.
2 0. B. Frothingham, Life of Gerrit Smith, t^j^. 113, 114.
3 Letter of O. J. Russell, Pulaski, N.T., July 29, 1896.
* Mr. George C. Bragdon writes concerning the runaways harbored by his
father, near Port Ontario : "I believe they usually went to Cape Vincent^
near the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and were taken over to Canada from
there. ... I believe some of the slaves received by him were sent on from
Peterboro by Gerrit Smith to Asa S. Wing or James C. Jackson (Mexico),
and came from them to our house. They steered clear of the villages, as a
rule. Our farm was favorably situated for concealing them and helping them
on." Letter of George C. Bragdon, Rochester, N.Y., Aug. 11, 1896.
Mrs. Elizabeth Smith MUler, the daughter of Gerrit Smith, says that in
October, 1839, the " White Slave, Harriet," was taken by Mr. Federal Dana
from her father's house directly to Cape Vincent, and that Mr. Dana wrote
from that point: "I saw her pass the ferry this morning into Canada."
Letter received from Mrs. Miller, Peterboro, N.Y., Sept. 21, 1896.
' The fugitive Jerry McHenry, after his rescue in Syracuse, was hurried
to Mexico, thence to Oswego, and from this point was transported across the
lake to Kingston. May, Some Recollections of Our Anti-Slavery Conflict,
pp. 378, 379.
128 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
which the Peterboro station was connected was the Elmira
route. In 1844, John W. Jones, an escaped slave from
Virginia, settled in Elmira, and began, together with Mr.
Jervis Langdon, a prominent citizen of the town, to receive
fugitives. A few years later the Northern Central Railroad
was constructed, and supplied a means of travel through
western New York to Niagara Falls. Underground passen-
gers forwarded by rail from Philadelphia, Harrisburg and
Williamsport were sent on via the Northern Central to
Canada.i In the counties of New York west and south of
the Elmira route the map shows some disconnected stations
and sections of Road. Not enough is known about these to
suggest with certainty their connections. It is, however,
evident that their trend is toward the short arm of the Prov-
ince of Ontario, which is separated from the United States
only by the Niagara River, with crossings favorable for fugi-
tives at Buffalo, Black Rock, Suspension Bridge and Lewis-
ton. In the angle of southwestern New York there were two
routes, the objective point of which was Buffalo. One of
these, by way of Westfield and Fredonia, hugged closely the
shore of Lake Erie ; ^ the other, issuing by way of the Alle-
ghany River from Franklin, Pennsylvania, ran through
Jamestown and Ellington to Leon, where it branched, one
division going to Fredonia and so on northward, whilst the
other seems to have followed a more direct course to Buf-
falo.3
Notwithstanding the unfavorable position for this work of
the New England states, a considerable number of fugitive
slaves found their way through these states to Canada. A
part of them came through Pennsylvania and New York.
Smedley states, as already noted, that hundreds were sent
from Wilmington, Columbia, and other points to the New
- Letters of Mrs. Susan L. Crane, Elmira, N.Y., Sept. 14 and 23, 1896.
Mrs. Crane is a daughter of Mr. Jervis Langdon mentioned in the text; letter
of John W. Jones, Elmira, N.Y., Dec. 14, 1896.
* A number of the stations along the lake shore are named in the sketches
called "Romances and Realities of the Underground Railroad," by H. U.
Johnson, printed in the Lakeshore and Home Magazine, 1885-1887.
' E. M. Pettit, in Sketches in the History of the Underground Bailroai,
pp. 30, 31, 32, gives an instance of the use of this route.
ROUTES OF MASSACHUSETTS 129
England states and Canada.^ Another part came by boat
from Southern ports to the shores of New England, landing
at various places, chief among which seem to have been New
Haven, New Bedford, Boston and Portland. Such was the
number of arrivals and consequent demand for transportation
to a place of safety, that these four places became the begin-
nings of routes, which it has been possible to trace on the
map with more or less completeness.
The first of these may be called the Connecticut valley
route. President E. B. Andrews, of Brown University,
whose father was an active friend of slaves at IMontague in
western Massachusetts, describes this route as running from
New York, New Haven, or New London up the Connecticut
River valley to Canada.^ This is corroborated by some
writer in the History of Springfield, Massachusetts, where it is
noted that there was a steady movement of parties of run-
aways up the valley on their way to the adjacent provinces.^
Mr. Erastus F. Gunn, of Montague, Massachusetts, writes
that the travel along this route was largely confined to the
west side of the river, and was through Springfield, North-
ampton and Greenfield into the State of Vermont.* Fugi-
tives disembarking at New Haven ^ went north through
Kensington, New Britain and Farmington, and probably by
way of Bloomfield or Hartford to Springfield. Sometimes
they came up the river by steamboat to Hartford, the head of
navigation, and continued their journey overland.^ A trail
probably much less used than the routes just mentioned,
seems to have connected the southwestern part of Connecti-
cut with the valley route.^ In Massachusetts there were
1 See p. 120, this chapter.
2 Letter of Mr. Andrews, Providence, E.I., April, 1895.
8 Pp. 470, 471.
* Letter of Mr. Gunn, Montague, Mass., Nov. 23, 1895.
5 Letter of Simeon E. Baldwin, New Haven, Conn., Jan. 27, 1896 ; letter
of Simeon D. Gilbert, New Haven, Conn., Feb. 27, 1896.
* Letter of D. W. C. Pond, New Britain, Conn. Mr. Pond is one of the
surviving agents of New Britain.
'Letters of George B. Wakeman, Montour Palls, N.Y., April 21 and
Sept. 26, 1896. Letter of the Rev. Erastus Blakeslee, Boston, Mass.,
Aug. 28, 1896.
130 UNDEBGROUND RAILROAD
ramifications from tlie valley route,^ which may have termi-
nated among the hills in the western part of the state, for all
that one can now discover.
A line of Road originating at New Bedford in southeastern
Massachusetts is mentioned in connection with the line up
the Connecticut valley by the Hon. M. M. Fisher, of Med-
way, Massachusetts, as one of the more common routes.^
Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace says that slaves landing on
Cape Cod went to New Bedford, whence under the guidance
of some abolitionist they were conveyed to the home of
Nathaniel P. Borden at Fall River. Between this station
and the one kept by Mr. and Mrs. Chace at Valley Falls,
Robert Adams acted as conductor; and from Valley Falls
Mr. Chace was in the habit of accompanying passengers a
short distance over the Providence and Worcester Railroad
until he had placed them in the care of some trusted em-
ployee of that road to be transferred at Worcester to the Ver-
mont Railroad.^ The Rev. Joshua Young was receiving
agent at Burlington, Vermont, and testifies that during his
residence there he and his friend and parishioner, L. H.
Bigelow, did "considerable business." * South of Burlington
there was a series of stations not connected with the Ver-
mont Central Railroad extension of the New Bedford route.
The names of these stations have been obtained from Mr.
Rowland E. Robinson, whose father's house was a refuge for
fugitives at Ferrisburg, Vermont, and from the Hon. Joseph
Poland, the editor of the first anti-slavery newspaper in his
state, who was himself an agent of the Underground Road at
Montpelier. The names are those of nine towns, which form
a line roughly parallel to the west boundary of the state,
namely, North Ferrisburg, Ferrisburg, Vergennes, Middle-
bury, Brandon, Rutland, Wallingford, Manchester and
1 The stations, as indicated on the map, are named in letters from L. S.
Abell and Charles Parsons, Conway, Mass.; C. Barrus, Springfield, Mass.;
Judge D. W. Bond, Cambridge, Mass.; and Arthur G. Hill, Boston, Mass.
See also article on "The Underground Railway," by Joseph Marsh, in the
Sistory of Florence, Massachusetts, pp. 165-167.
2 Letter of Mr. Fisher, Oct. 23, 1893.
' Anti-Slavery Seminiscences, pp. 27, 28.
* Letter of Mr. Young, Groton, Mass., April 21, 1893.
CA^'ES IN SALEM TOWXSHIP, WASHINC4T0N COUNTY, OHIO.
The cave on the left was a rendezvous for fugitives.
HOUSE OF MRS. ELIZABETH BUFFUJI CHACE,
A STATION OF THE UNDBRGEOUND KATLEOAD, VALLEY FALLS, RHODE ISLAXD.
ROUTES or VERMONT 131
Bennington.^ They constituted what may be called the west
Vermont route, Bennington being at the southern extremity,
where escaped slaves were received from Troy, New York.^
The terminal at the northern end of this route was St.
Albans, whence runaways could be hastened across the
Canadian frontier. The valley of the lower Connecticut
seems to have yielded a sufficient supply of fugitive slaves to
sustain a vigorous line of Road in eastern Vermont. It was
over this line the travellers came that were placed in hiding
in the office of Editor Poland at Montpelier, having made
their way northward with the aid of friends at Brattleboro,
Chester, Woodstock, Randolph and intermediate points. At
Montpelier the single path divided into three branches, one
extending westward and uniting with the west Vermont
route at Burlington, another running northward into the
Queen's dominions by way of Morristown and other stations,
and the third zigzagging to New Port, where a pass through
the mountains admitted the zealous pilgrims to the coveted
possession of their own liberty.*
Having thus sketched in the Vermont lines of Underground
Railroad, it is necessary for us to return to the consideration
of the New Bedford route, which had some accessory lines
near its source. One of these had stations at Newport and
Providence, managed by Quakers — Jethro and Anne Mitchell
with others in the former, and Daniel Mitchell in the latter.*
Another was a short line through Windham County, in the
northeastern part of Connecticut, to Uxbridge, where it joined
the main line.^ The Rev. Samuel J. May, who was a resident
of Brooklyn, Connecticut, in the early thirties, had fugitives
addressed to his care at that time, and he helped them on to
Effingham L. Capron while he lived in Uxbridge, and after-
1 Letter of Mr. Robinson, Feixisburg, Vt., Aug. 19, 1896; letter of Mr.
Poland, Montpelier, Vt., April 12, 1897.
2 Letter of Mr. Bramerd, St. Albans, Vt, Oct. 21, 1895.
« Letters of Mrs. Abijah Keitb, Chicago, Dl., March 28, and April 4, 1897 ;
letters of Mr. Poland, April 7 and 12, 1897.
* Letter of James S. Rogers, Chicago, HI., April 17, 1897.
'Letters of Joel Fox, Willimantic, Conn., July 30, 1896, and Aug. 3,
1896.
132 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
wards when he settled in Worcester.^ From Boston ^ west-
ward there were at least two paths to reach the New Bedford
road, one of these was by way of Newton to Worcester, and
the other through Concord to Leominster. Mr. William I.
Bowditch generally passed on the fugitives received at his
house to Mr. William Jackson, of Newton, thence they were
sent by rail to Worcester.^ Colonel T. W. Higginson writes
that fugitives were sometimes sent from Boston to Worcester,*
while he lived in the latter place, and that he has himself
driven them at midnight to the farm of the veteran abolition-
ists, Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster, in the suburbs of the
city.® All along the short route, from Boston to Leominster
and Fitchburg, stations were systematically arranged, accord-
ing to the statement of Mrs. Mary E. Crocker,^ who was one
of the helpers at Leominster.'^' This was the route taken by
Shadrach, after his rescue in Boston.^
Boston was the starting-point of longer lines running north
along the coast ; one, so far as can now be made out, turning
and passing obliquely across New Hampshire ; the other fol-
lowing the shore into Maine. Mr. Simeon Dodge, of Marble-
head, Massachusetts, who had intimate knowledge of the first
of these courses, gives, in an illustrative case, the names of
Marblehead, Salem and Georgetown as stations ; ^ and Mr. G.
W. Putnam, of Lynn, gives the names of persons harboring
1 Some Becollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 297.
2 "In Boston there were many places where fugitives were received and
taken care of. Every anti-slavery man was ready to protect them, and
among these were some families not known to be anti-slavery." James
Freeman Clarke, Anti-Slavery Days, p. 86.
8 Letter of Mr. Bowditch, Boston, April 5, 1893.
* Letter of Mr. Higginson, Glimpsewood, Dublin, N.H., July 24, 1896.
* T. W. Higginson, Atlantic Monthly, March, 1897.
5 Article on "The Fugitive Slave Law and Its "Workings," in Fitchburg
Daily Sentinel, Oct. 31, 1893.
' Letter of Mr. F. B. Sanborn, Concord, Mass., Feb. 1, 1896, states that
" Concord was a place of resort for fugitives." Letter of Mr. S. Shurtleff,
South Paris, Me., May 25, 1896, states that " The direct line of the Under-
ground Railroad was from Boston through Vermont, via St. Albans."
8 Atlantic Monthly, March, 1897, p. 345 ; Fitchburg Daily Sentinel,
Oct. 31, 1893 ; letter of Mr. Sanborn, Concord, Mass., Feb. 1, 1896.
» Letter of Mr. Dodge, March, 1893.
ROUTES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MAINE 133
slaves at two of these places.^ A report of the Danvers His-
torical Society is authority for the statement that Mr. Dodge,
together with some of the abolitionists of Salem, maintained
a secret thoroughfare to Canada,^ which passed through Dan-
vers, and on through Concord, New Hampshire.^ From Con-
cord fugitives were sent north to Canterbury and Meredith
Ridge* in two known instances, and more frequently, it ap-
pears, to Canaan and Lyme. James Furber, who lived in
Canaan for several years, is said to have made trips to Lyme
about once a fortnight with refugees received by him.* From
Lyme they may have gone north by way of the Connecticut
valley. At Salem the coast route parted company with the
New Hampshire route, and ran on through Ipswich, Newbury-
port and Exeter ^ to Eliot, Maine, and perhaps farther.
Slaves sometimes reached Portland, Maine, travelling as
stowaways on vessels from Southern ports. Consequently
Portland became the centre of several hidden routes to Can-
ada. Mr. S. T. Pickard, who lived in the family of Mrs.
Oliver Dennett in Portland, says that Mrs. Dennett harbored
runaway slaves, as did also Nathan Winslow and General
Samuel Fessenden. The fugitives that came to Portland, he
says, were on their way to New Brunswick and Lower Canada,
and some were shipped directly to England.'^ Mr. Brown
Thurston, the veteran abolitionist of Portland, is authority for
the statement that routes extended from Portland to the prov-
inces, by water to St. John, New Brunswick, and by rail to
Montreal,* the road used being the Grand Trunk.® An im-
portant overland route also had its origin at Portland. Its
two branches encircled Sebago Lake, united at Bridgton,
and formed a single pathway to the northwest, and did not
1 Letter of Mr. Putnam, Lynn, Mass., Feb. 14, 1894.
2 Old Anti-Slavery Days, p. 150.
• Letter of David Mead, Davenport, Mass., Nov. 3, 1893.
* Letter of Judge Mellen Chamberlain, Chelsea, Mass., Feb. 1, 1896.
' Letter of C. E. Lord, Franklin, Pa., July 6, 1896.
' Letter of D. L. Brigham, Manchester, Mass., Nov. 16, 1893 ; letter of
Prof essor Marshall S. Snow, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., April 28,
1896. 7 Letter of Mr. Pickard, Portland, Me., Nov. 18, 1893.
' Letter of Mr. Thurston, Jan. 13, 1893.
' Letter of Mr. Thurston, Oct. 21, 1895 ; letter of Aaron Dunn, South
Paris, Me., April 9, 1896.
134 lUSTDERGROirND RAILROAD
separate again until the eastern border of Vermont was
reached. There, at Lunenburg, one branch took its course
up the Connecticut valley to Stratford, and thence, probably,
ran to Stanstead, Quebec ; while the other, passing more to
the westward, joined the easternmost of the branches from
Montpelier, Vermont, at Barton, and so entered Canada.^
Besides, there were at least two subsidiary routes, which were
probably feeders of the "through line " just described. One
of them ran to South Paris and Lovell ; ^ the other, accord-
ing to ex-President O. B. Cheney, of Bates College, who was
privy to its operations, ran to Effingham, North Parsonsfield
and Porter.^ Both Lovell and Porter are within a few miles
of several of the stations that form a part of the Maine
section of this line, and could witnesses be found it is likely
that their testimony would sustain the view that external
evidence suggests.
In the free states included between the Ohio and the Mis-
sissippi rivers the number of underground trails was much
greater than in the states farther east. Bordering on the
slave states, Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia, with a length
of frontier greatly increased by the sinuosities of the rivers,
the states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were the most favor-
ably situated of all the Northern states to receive fugitive
slaves. Not only the bounding rivers themselves, but also
their numerous tributaries, became channels of escape into
free territory, and connected directly with many lines of
Underground Railroad. These lines of Road are shown on
the map as starting from the Ohio or the Mississippi, but they
cannot be supposed to have abruptly originated there, for in
some instances there were points south of these streams that
formed an essential part of the system. It is impossible to
bring together here the numerous bits of testimony through
the correlation of which the multitude of lines within the old
Northwest Territory has been traced. Only a general survey,
therefore, of the Underground Railroad system in the Western
states will be undertaken, while several smaller maps of limited
1 Letter of J. MUton Hall, April 30, 1897.
2 Letter of S. Shurtleff, May 25, 1896.
' Letter of Mr. Cheney, Pawtuxet, R.I., April 8, 1896.
ROUTES EST THE WESTERN STATES 135
areas will give the details of the multiple and complex routes
found therein.
/^Concerning the number of paths there were in Ohio it is
■ almost impossible to obtain a definite and correct idea. The
location of the state was favorable to the development of new
Unas with the steady increase in the number of slaves fleeing
across its southern borders ; and, in the process of development,
it was natural that the various branches should intertwine
and form a great network. To disentangle the strands of
this web and say how many there were is a thing not easy to
accomplish, although an anonymous writer in 1842 seems to
have found little or no difficulty in arriving at a definite
conclusion. His estimate appeared in the Uxperiment of
December 7, and is as follows: "It is evident from the
statements of the abolitionists themselves, that there exist
some eighteen or nineteen thoroughly organized thorough-
fares through the State of Ohio for the transportation of run-
away and stolen slaves, one of which passes through Fitchville,
and which to my certain knowledge has done a ' land office
business.' " ^ If the number of important initial stations fring-
ing the southern and eastern boundaries of Ohio be counted
as the points of origin of separate routes, it would be correct
to say that there were not less than twenty-two or twenty-
three routes in Ohio, but in a count thus made one would
fail to note the instances in which, as in the case of Cincinnati,
several lines sprang from one locality.
In the remaining portion of the Northwest Territory, the
number of lines was relatively not so great; and extended
areas, as in the western and northern parts of Indiana or the
southeastern part of Illinois, contained few or no lines so far
as can now be discovered. In western and northern Illinois
the conditions were more favorable, and the multiplicity of
routes is such that on account of the fusion, division and sub-
division of roads it is impossible to say how many lines crossed
the state. In Michigan the case is not so complicated, and
one can trace with some clearness six or seven paths leading
to Detroit. Iowa, not a part, however, of the old Northwest
Territory, was traversed by lines terminating in Illinois, and
1 The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 67.
136
tTNDERGUOUND EAILKOAD
therefore deserves consideration here. In the southeastern
part of the state there were several short routes with initial
stations at Croton, Bloomfield, Lancaster and Cincinnati,
all of which had terminals no doubt along the Mississippi,
though it has been possible to complete but two of the
routes. In southwestern Iowa, Percival and the three roads
branching from it
are said to have
supplied means of
egress for slaves
from Missouri and
Nebraska through
three tiers of coun-
ties ranging across
the state in lines
parallel with the
north boundary of
Missouri. John
Brown took the
northernmost of
these parallel roads
in the winter of
1858 and 1859,
when he led a
company of twelve
fugitives from Mis-
souri through Kan-
sas to Percival on
their way to Chi-
cago and Detroit.
Of the local
maps, the first rep-
resents the lines passing through a portion of Morgan County,
in the southeastern part of Ohio. It was drawn by Mr. Thomas
Williams, whose services in behalf of runaways made him fa-
miliar with the location of operators in the western part of his
county.^ The area represented is twenty-five miles in length
1 Corroborative evidence as regards the routes of Morgan County is found
in letters from the following persons : E. M. Stanberry, McConnellsville, 0.,
Undeeqround Lines of Morgan County, Ohio.
Drawn by Thomas Williams.
MAPS OF LOCALITIES EXAMINED 137
and sixteen in -width at the widest part, and contains nineteen
stations including the towns through which routes passed.
The irregular distribution of these stations, and the way in
which trips could be varied from one to another to suit the con-
venience of conductors or to elude pursuers is apparent. The
fugitives that travelled over these routes crossed the Ohio
River in the vicinity of Parkersburg and Point Pleasant, in
what is now West Virginia, and proceeded north twenty or
thirty miles by the help of abolitionists before reaching
Morgan County. The southern part of this county was
traversed by two parallel lines, one of which branched at Ros-
seau and ran on in parallels to the northern part of the county
whence after sharp deflection to the west the branches con-
verged at Deavertown ; the other issued from its first station
in three divergent lines, which rapidly converged at Penns-
ville and were united by a single course to the first route.
In case of emergency a guide used his knowledge and discre-
tion as to whether he should " cut across lots," skip stations,
travel by the "longest way around," or go back on his track.
The houses noted on the map as being off the regular routes
appear to have been emergency stations and hence not so
frequently used.
A special map of exceeding interest and importance is that
drawn by Mr. Lewis Falley, of La Fayette, Indiana, showing
the underground lines of Indiana and IMichigan about 1848.
Mr. Falley's acquaintance with the Road came about through
the work of his father in the interest of fugitives in La Fay-
ette after 1841. Subsequently Mr. Falley learned of the
lines traversing his state through an itinerant preacher who
sometimes stopped as a guest at his father's house. When
Mr. Falley's map was received in March, 1896, the author
himself had already plotted from other testimony a number
of routes in southern and eastern Indiana and in Michigan,
and a comparison of maps was made. On Mr. Falley's map
three main roads appear, the eastern, middle and western
routes. The first of these ran parallel, roughly speaking,
Nov. 1, 1892; T. L. Gray, Deavertown, O., Dec. 2, 1892; Martha Millions,
Pennsville, 0., March 9, 1892 ; E. B. Brown, Sugar Grove, O. ; H. C. Harvey,
Manchester, Kan., Jan. 16, 1893.
138
IMDEEGROUND EAILROAD
with the eastern boundary line of the state only a few miles
from it, and took its rise from two lesser paths, which con-
verged at Richmond from
either side of the state
line. The second or mid-
dle route sprang from
three branches that
crossed the Ohio at Madi-
son, New Albany, and the
neighborhood of Leaven-
worth, passed north
through Indianapolis and
Logansport, and entered
Michigan a few miles east
of Lake Michigan. The
third or western route
followed up the Wabash
River to La Fayette,
where it crossed the
river, proceeded to Rens-
selaer, and thence north-
easterly to the Michigan
line, making its entrance
to Michigan at the point
where the middle route
entered that state. From
the two crossing-places on the Michigan border the northern
extensions of the Indiana routes found their way to Battle
Creek, from which station one trail led directly east to
Detroit, and the other, by a more northerly course, to Port
Huron. In southern Indiana the eastern route was con-
nected with the middle route by a branch between Greens-
burg and Indianapolis, and the middle with the western by
two branches, one between Salem and Evansville, and the
other between Brownstown and Bloomingdale.
In the general map prepared by the author, the southern
route through Michigan to Detroit, and the eastern, middle,
and a portion of the western routes in Indiana on the map of
Mr. Falley are duplicated with more or less completeness.
taiH^MfW^lSkDoicalDUles.^ ,^^^U)nteniot well established. «hm
EotJTBS THROITGH INDIANA AND MICHIGAN
IN 1848.
As traced by Lewis Falley.
MAPS OF LOCALITIES EXAMINED
139
The initial stations along tlie Ohio River correspond in the
two maps almost exactly, and many of the way-stations seen
on the one map are to be found on the other. It is not to
be expected that the two maps would agree in all particulars,
and some stations occur on each that are not to be found on
the other. Such differences are due to the development of
new or the obliteration of old
lines and the insufficient know-
ledge of the draughtsmen. It is
not known that a map similar to
Mr. Falley's has been devised for
any other state or states among
the many through which well-
defined underground routes ex-
tended.
From a drawing made by Mr.
W. B. Fyffe, an old-time station-
agent of Ottawa, Illinois, the
accompanying chart of a line of
escape through Livingston and
La Salle counties in Illinois is
reproduced. The portion of the
trail represented is about forty
miles in length, and is remarkable
for the directness of its course
and the absence of interlacing
lines. At Ottawa, the northern-
most station shown, the trail
loses these two characteristics,
for it makes there a sharp turn
on its way to the terminus, Chi-
cago, and at Ottawa also it makes
a junction with several other lines from the western part
of the state.^
A number of noteworthy features appear on the general
map. The first deserving mention is the direction or trend
of the underground lines. The region traversed by these
lines may be described as an irregular crescent, the concavity
1 For these features see the general map.
Simple Route thkough Ltvtng-
STON Airo La SALLE COTTNTIES,
Illinois.
DrawB hy William B. Fylfe.
140
UNDERGROUND RAULROAD
of which is in part filled by a portion of Ontario, Canada,
which by reason of its proximity became the goal of the great
majority of runaways. In the New England states the direc-
tion of the underground paths was, with perhaps an exception
or two, from southeast to northwest, their objective point be-
CoUin'^ Place
Port William
I Rev.Fergruson
ifjoel P.Davis
l\ A. Allen
ll David Allen
S^Oakland-jivl., s., J..and W. Srooie
i »"^ I \j.,d:H.D. Thompson I
—- ■ ^^ B [Ed. Kinsey j
totemasjNickerson'jl Wilmington
Station I I \
O I L I I K T O
I i I \
Sewell's^j
place
\ "WoodinaiiBee^a
I Place \
I \
MartinsvMIe^oi
/
\((ew Vienna
Lynchbufs
Drawn by Joel P. Davis.
Added branches -——---■
Network of Routes through Grbenb, Warren and Clinton
Counties, Ohio.
ing Montreal. The main lines of Pennsylvania and New York
ran north until they reached the middle part of the latter
state, and then veered off almost directly west to Canada.
West of Pennsylvania the trend of the routes was in general
to northeast, being in Ohio and Indiana to the shores of Lake
MULTIPLE AND INTEICATE TEATLS 141
Erie, and in Illinois and Iowa to the southern extremity of
Lake Michigan. Through central Iowa, northern Illinois
and southern Michigan, the course of the routes was almost
directly east.
It is not surprising that the regions through which the
simplest and most direct routes passed should have been those
at the two extremities of the great irregular crescent of free
soil, where the number of routes was few and the activity of
the stations limited. In the states that formed the middle
portion of the crescent, it was natural that multiple and intri-
cate trails should have been developed. The fact that slave-
owners and their agents often sallied into this region in search
of missing chattels was a consideration given due weight by
the shrewd operators, who early learned that one of their best
safeguards lay in complex routes, made by several lines radiat-
ing from one centre, or branch connections between routes, by
paths that zigzagged from station to station. These features
were characteristic, and serve to show that the safety of fugi-
tives was never sacrificed by the abolitionists to any thought-
less desire for rapid transit. From Cincinnati, Ohio, not less
than four branches of the Road radiated. One of these led
to Fountain City, Indiana, where it was joined by two other
important lines. From this point four lines diverged to the
north. At Oberlin as many as five lines converged from the
south. Quincy, Illinois, was the starting-point of four or five
lines, and Knoxville, Ottawa and Chicago in the same state
each received fugitives from several routes. The region in
which the devices of multiple routes and cross lines were
most highly developed is, as far as known, in southeastern
Pennsylvania.
Some broken lines and isolated place-names occur upon the
map. For example, in Iowa, branches of the system have been
traced to Quincy, Indianola, North English and Ottumwa,
but beyond these points the connections cannot be made.
Examples of such incomplete sections will be found also in
northern and central Illinois, in central Indiana, in western
New York, in central and eastern Pennsylvania and in other
states. It is not to be supposed that the routes represented
by these fragmentary lines terminated abruptly without reach-
142 UNDERGROUND RAELROAD
ing a haven of safety, but only that the witnesses whose testi-
mony is essential to complete the lines have not been discovered.
In the case of the isolated place-names, a few of which occur
in the New England states, in New York, Pennsylvania,
Indiana and Illinois, the evidence at hand seemed to desig-
nate them as stations, without indicating in any definite way
the neighboring stations with which they were probably allied.
On the general map may be noticed a few long stretches of
Road that had apparently no way-stations. Such lines are
usually identical with certain rivers, or canals, or railway sys-
tems. It has already been seen that the Connecticut River
served to guide fugitives north on their way to Canada.^
The Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio, Alleghany, and Hudson rivers
united stations more or less widely separated.^ The tow-paths
of some of our western canals formed convenient highways
to liberty for a considerable number of self-reliant fugitives,
and were considered safer than public roads. A letter from
E. C. H. Gavins, of Bloomfield, Indiana,* states that the
Wabash and Erie Canal became a thoroughfare for slaves,
who followed it from the vicinity of.Evansville, Indiana, until
they reached Ohio, probably in some instances going as far
as Toledo, though usually, as the writer believes, striking
off on one or another of several established lines of Under-
ground Road in central and northern Indiana. James Bay-
liss,* of Massillon, in northeastern Ohio, states that fugitives
sometimes came up the tow-path of the canal to Massillon,
knowing that the canal led to Cleveland, whence a boat could
be taken for Canada.^
The identity of a few of the tracings with steam railway
lines signifies, of course, transportation by rail when the situ-
ation admitted of it. Sometimes, when there was not the
usual eagerness of pursuit, and when the intelligence or the
1 See p. 129, this chapter.
2 See the language of Jefferson Davis, quoted on p. 312, Chapter X ; letter
of A. P. Dutton, Racine, Wis., April 7, 1896 ; E. M. Pettit, Sketches in the
History of the Underground Bailroad, pp. 29, 30, 31 ; letter of Florence and
Cordelia H. Ray, referred to on p. 126, this chapter.
' Letter of Mr. Cavins, Dec. 6, 1895.
* Conversation with James Bayliss, Massillon, O., Aug. 15, 1895.
' Letter of Brown Thurston, Portland, Me., Oct. 21, 1895.
KOUTES BY KAIL AND BY WATER 143
Caucasian cast of features of the fugitive warranted it,
the traveller was provided with the necessary ticket and in-
structions, and put aboard the cars for his destination. The
Providence and Worcester and the Vermont Central rail-
roads furnished quick transportation from New Bedford,
Massachusetts, to Canada.^ In southeastern Pennsylvania
the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad carried many slaves
on their way to freedom, and according to Smedley, " All
who took the trains at the Reading Railroad stations went
directly through to Canada." ^ E. F. Pennypacker often for-
warded negroes from Schuylkill to Philadelphia over this
road, and William StUl sent them on their northward jour-
ney.^ Fugitives arriving at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, some-
times took passage over the Northern Central Railroad to
Elmira, New York. Mr. Jervis Langdon and John W.
Jones, of Elmira, took care that underground passengers se-
cured transportation from Elmira to their destination. The
fugitives were always put in the baggage-car at four o'clock
in the morning,* and went through without change to the
Niagara River. The old Mad River Railroad bore many
dark-skinned passengers from Urbana, if not also from Cin-
cinnati and Dayton, Ohio, to Lake Erie.^ In eastern Ohio
the Cleveland and Western Railroad, from Alliance to Cleve-
land, was much patronized during several years by instructed
runaways. Mr. I. Newton Peirce, then living in Alliance,
had " an understanding with all the passenger-train conduc-
tors on the C. and W. R. R." that colored persons provided
with tickets bearing the initials I. N. P. were to be admitted
1 See p. 80, Chapter m.
2 Underground Railroad, p. 174. See also pp. 176, 177.
s Ibid., pp. 364, 365.
Tlie following letter from Mr. Pennypacker to Mr. Still explains itself :
" Schuylkill, 11th Mo., 7th, 1857.
"WiLLLAM Still, Respected Friend, — There are three colored friends at
my house now, who will reach the city by the Philadelphia and Reading train
this evening. Please meet them.
Thine, etc. , E. F. Penntpackek.
We have within the past two months passed forty-three through our hands,
transported most of them to Norristown in our own conveyance. E. F. P."
4 Letter of Mr. Jones, Elmira, N.Y., Jan. 16, 1897.
5 See p. 78, Chapter III.
144 UNDERGROUND EAELROAD
to the trains without question, unless slave-catchers were
thought to be aboard the cars.^ Indiana and Michigan are
known to have had their steam railway lines in the secret
service system : in the former state the Louisville, New
Albany and Chicago Railroad was utilized by operators at
CrawfordsviUe ; ^ in the latter the Michigan Central sup-
plied a convenient outlet to Detroit from stations along its
course.^ The Chicago and Rock Island Railroad from Peru,
Lasalle County, Illinois, to Chicago was incorporated in the
service, so also was the Illinois Central from Cairo and Cen-
tralia to the same terminus. The Chicago, Burlington and
Quincy Railroad sometimes conveyed fugitives from Quincy
on the Mississippi River to Chicago. Two men of promi-
nence connected with this road, who secured transportation
over its rails for many Canada-bound passengers, were Dr. C.
V. Dyer, of Chicago, and Colonel Berrien, chief engineer of
the road.*
Along the portion of the Atlantic coast shown on the map
will be seen long lines connecting Southern with Northern
ports. These represent routes to liberty by sea. It is re-
ported by a station-keeper of Valley Falls, Rhode Island,
that " Slaves in Virginia would secure passage either secretly
or with the consent of the captains, in small trading vessels,
at Norfolk or Portsmouth, and thus be brought into some
port in New England, where their fate depended on circum-
stances ;" ^ and the reporter gives several instances coming
within her knowledge of fugitives that escaped from Virginia
to Massachusetts as stowaways on vessels.^ Boats engaged
in the lumber trade sometimes brought refugees from New-
berne, North Carolina, to Philadelphia.'^ Captain Austin
Bearse, who was active in the rescue of stowaways from
vessels arriving in Boston harbor from the South, cites two
instances in which fugitives came by sea from Wilmington,
1 Letter of Mr. Peiroe, Folcroft, Delaware Co., Pa., Feb. 1, 1893.
2 See p. 79, Chapter in. s jftjfj.
* Life and Poems of John Howard Bryant, p. 30. Mr. Bryant made a
practice of receiving fugitives in his house in Princeton, HI.
6 Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, Anti-Slavery Beminiscences, p. 27.
6 Ibid., pp. 28, 30.
' R. C. Smedley, Underground Railroad, p. 356.
PLACES OF,DEPOETATION 145
Nortli Carolina, and another from Jacksonville, Florida.^
William Still gives a number of cases of escape by boat from
Ricbmond and Norfolk, Virginia, and Wilmington, North
Carolina, to the Vigilance Committee at Philadelphia.^ Ne-
groes arriving in New York City and coming within the
horizon of Isaac T. Hopper's knowledge were often sent by
water to Providence and Boston.^
Of the terminal stations or places of deportation along our
northeastern boundary, there are not less than twenty-four,
and probably many more. Three of them, Boston, Portland
and St. Albans, were located in the New England states.
Fugitives were probably less often sent directly to English
soil from Boston than from the two other points, and in the
few instances of which we have any hint, with perhaps one
exception, the passengers so sent were put aboard vessels
sailing for England. The boats running between Portland
and the Canadian provinces were freely made use of to help
slaves to their freedom, especially as the emigrants were often
provided with passes. Sailing-vessels also furnished free
passage, and carried the majority of the passengers that went
from Portland.* St. Albans was the terminal of the Vermont
line. Many fugitives were received and cared for here, and
were sent on by private conveyance across the Canada border
before the Vermont Central Railroad was built. Afterwards
they were sent by rail, through the intervention of the Hon.
Lawrence Brainerd, of St. Albans, who was one of the pro-
jectors of the steam railroad and largely interested in it
financially.^
Along the northern boundary of New York and Penn-
"^sylvania there seem to have been not less than ten resorts
facing the Canadian frontier. These were Ogdensburg,® Cape
^ Eeminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Lain Days in Boston, pp. 34, 36, 37.
« William Still, Underground Mailroad Records, pp. 77, 142, 151, 163, 165,
211, etc.
' Letter of James S. Rogers, Chicago, Dl., April 17, 1897.
* Letter of Brown Thurston, Portland, Me., Oct. 21, 1895.
5 Letter of Aldis O. Brainerd, St. Albans, Vt., Oct. 21, 1895.
6 " They crossed at Detroit and at Niagara and at Ogdenshurg. Of those
in New England, some went np through Vermont, some fled to Maine, and
crossed over into New Brunswick." F. W. Seward, Seward at Washington
as Senator and Secretary of State, Vol. I, p. 170.
146 UNDEEGROtTND EAILKOAD
Vincent, Port Ontario, Oswego, some port near Rochester,
Lewiston, Suspension Bridge, Black Rock, Buffalo, Dunkirk
Harbor and Erie. Doubtless the most important of these cross-
ing-places were the four along the Niagara River, for here
the most travelled of the routes in New York terminated. The
harbors along Lake Ontario and the one on the St. Lawrence
River appear to have been the terminals of side-tracks and
branches rather than of main lines of Road.
Ohio may lay claim to eight terminal stations, all compara-
tively important. The best-known of these appear to have
been Ashtabula Harbor, Painesville, Cleveland, Sandusky
and Toledo, although the other three, Huron, Lorain and
Conneaut, may be supposed, from their locations, to have
done a thriving business. It is impossible to get now a meas-
ure of the eflBciency of these various ports, for the period dur-
ing which they were resorted to was a long one, and operators
were obliged to work more or less independently, and ob-
tained no adequate idea of the number emigrating from any
one point. Custom-house methods were not followed in keep-
ing account of the negroes exported across the Canada fron-
tier. All that can be said in comparing these various ports
is that Ashtabula Harbor, Cleveland and Sandusky, each
seems to have been the terminus for four or five lines of Road,
while perhaps only two or three lines ended at Toledo and
Painesville, and one each at Huron, Lorain and Conneaut.
Concerning the port at Huron we have a few observations,
made by Mr. L. S. Stow, who lived a few miles from Lake
Erie on the course of the Milan canal, and near one of the
managers of the terminal, on whose premises fugitives often
awaited the appearance of a Canada-bound boat. He says :
"We used to see, occasionally, the fugitives, who ventured
out for exercise while waiting for an opportunity to get on
one of the vessels frequently passing down the canal and
river from Milan, during the season of navigation. Many of
these vessels passed through the Welland Canal on their way
to the lower Lakes, and after leaving the harbor at Huron the
fugitives were safe from the pursuit of their masters unless
the vessels were compelled by stress of weather to return to
harbor." ^
1 The Firelanda Pioneer, July, 1888, pp. 80, 81.
■»'raei»Srii<j|;^
«!?:,■
j4 "^(iSifc-T
THE DETROIT RIVER, AT DETROIT, MICHIGAN, IN 1850,
THE FAVOKITE PLACE FOK FUGITIVES TO CROSS INTO CANADA.
(From an engra\'ing in possession of C. M. Burton, Esq., of Detroit.)
HARBOR, ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO, IN 18G0,
A PLACE OF DEPORTATION FOR FUGITIVES ON LAKE ERIE.
(From n photograph in possession of J. D. Hulbert, Esq., of Harbor, Ohio.)
LINES OF BOAT-SERVICE TO CANADA 147
Hundreds, nay, thousands of fugitives found crossing-places
along the Detroit River, especially at the city of Detroit.
The numerous routes of Indiana together with several of the
chief routes of western Ohio poured their passengers into
Detroit, thence to be transported by ferries and row-boats to
the tongue of land pressing its shore-line for thirty miles from
Lake Erie to Lake St. Clair upon the very borders of Michi-
gan. The movement of slaves to this region was a fact of
which Southerners early became apprised, and their efforts
to recover their servants as these were about to enter the
Canaan already within sight were occasionally successful,
although the majority of the people of Detroit ^ and of the
surrounding districts rejoiced to see the slave-catchers out-
witted.
The places of deportation remaining to be mentioned are
four, along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, namely,
Milwaukee, Racine, South Port and Chicago. Of these the
last-named was, doubtless, the most important, since through
it chiefly were drained off the fugitives that came from Mis-
souri over the routes of Iowa and Illinois. A single operator
of Chicago, Mr. Philo Carpenter, is said to have guided not
less than two hundred negroes to Canada-bound vessels.^
The lines of boat-service to the Canadian termini require
a few words of comment. The longest line of travel on the
lakes was that connecting the ports of Wisconsin and Illinois
with Detroit or Amherstburg,^ and was only approached in
length by the route from Chicago to CoUingwood, Ontario.*
Five hundred miles would be a minimum statement of the
distance refugees were carried by the boats of abolitionist
captains from these westernmost ports to their havens of refuge.
On Lake Erie the routes were, of course, much shorter, and
ran up and down the lake, as well as across it. Important
routes joined Toledo, Sandusky and Cleveland to Amherst-
burg and Detroit at one end of the lake, and Dunkirk, Ashta-
bula Harbor, Painesvijle and Cleveland with Buffalo and
* Silas Farmer, History of Detroit and Michigan, p. 346.
^ Edward G. Mason, Early Chicago and Illinois, p. 110.
* See Chapter m, pp. 82, 83.
* Letter of John G. Weiblen, Fairview, Erie Co., Pa., Nov. 26, 1895.
148 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Black Rock at the other end of the lake. Certain boats run-
ning on these routes came to be known as abolition boats, with
ample accommodations for underground passengers. Thus,
we are told, such passengers " depended on a vessel named
the Arrow, which for many years plied between Sandusky
and Detroit, but always touched first at Maiden, Canada,
where the fugitives were landed."^ Frequent .use was also
made of scows, sail-boats and sharpies, with which refugees
could be " set across " the lake, and landed at almost any
point along the shore. Small vessels, a part of whose
"freight" had been received from the Underground Rail-
road, were often despatched to Port Burwell in the night
from the warehouse of Hubbard and Company, forwarding and
commission merchants of Ashtabula Harbor.^ Similar enter-
prises were carried on at various other points along the lake.^
So far as known. Lake Ontario had only a few comparatively
insignificant routes : at the upper end of the lake were two,
one joining Rochester and St. Catherines, the other, St. Cathe-
rines and Toronto; at the lower end of the lake, Oswego,
Port Ontario and Cape Vincent seem to have been connected
by lines with Kingston.
It is impossible to tell how many cities, towns and villages
in Canada became terminals of the underground system.
Outside of the interlake region of Ontario it is safe to name
Kingston, Prescott, Montreal, Stanstead and St. John, New
Brunswick. Within that region the terminals were numerous,
being scattered from the southern shore of Georgian Bay to
Lake Erie, and from the Detroit and Huron rivers to the
1 The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 77.
* Conversation with Nelson Watrous, Harbor, O., Aug. 8, 1892 ; conversa-
tion with J. D. Hulbert, Harbor, O., Aug. 7, 1892.
' The following incident given by Mr. Rush R. Sloane will serve as an
illustration: "In the summer of 1853, four fugitives arrived at Sandusky.
. . . Mr. John Irvine . . . had arranged for a ' sharpee,' a small sail-boat
used by fishermen, with one George Sweigels, to sail the boat to Canada with
this party, for which service Captain Sweigels was to receive thirty-five dol-
lars. One man accompanied Captain Sweigels, and at eight o'clock in the
evening this party in this small boat started to cross Lake Erie. The wind
was favorable, and before morning Point au Pelee Island was reached, and
the next day the four escaped fugitives were in Canada." The Firelands
Pioneer, July, 1888, pp. 49, 50.
TERMINALS IN CANADA 149
Niagara. Owen Sound, Collingwood and Oro were the
northernmost resorts, so far as now known. Toronto,
Queen's Bush, Wellesley, Gait and Hamilton occupied terri-
tory south of these, and farther south still, in the marginal
strip fronting directly on Lake Erie, there were not less than
twenty more places of refuge. The most important of these
were naturally those situated at either end of the strip, and
along the shore-line, namely, Windsor, Sandwich and Am-
herstburg. New Canaan, Colchester and Kingsville, Gosfield
and Buxton, Port Stanley, Port Burwell and Port Royal,
Long Point, Fort Erie and St. Catherines. In the yalley of
the Thames also many refugees settled, especially at Chat-
ham, Dresden and Dawn, and at Sydenham, London and
Wilberforce. The names of two additional towns, Sarnia on
the Huron River and Brantford on the Grand, complete the
list of the known Canadian terminals. This enumeration of
centres cannot be supposed to be exhaustive. A full record
would take into account the localities in the outlying country
districts as well as those adjoining or forming a part of the
hamlets, towns and cities of the whites, whither the blacks
had penetrated. The untrodden wilds of Canada, as well as
her populous places, seemed hospitable to a people for whom
the hardships of the new life were fuUy compensated by the
consciousness of their possession of the rights of freemen,
rights vouchsafed them by a government that exemplified the
proud boast of the poet Cowper : —
" Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free !
They touch our country and their shackles fall."
CHAPTER VI
ABDUCTION OF SLAVES FKOM THE SOUTH
Most persons that engaged in the underground service were
opposed either to enticing or to abducting slaves from the
South. This was no less true along the southern border of the
free states than in their interior. The principle generally
acted upon by the friends of fugitives was that which they
held to be voiced in the Scriptural injunction to feed the
hungry and clothe the naked. The quaking negro at the
door in the dead of night seeking relief from a condition,
the miseries of which he found intolerable and for which he
was in no proper sense responsible, was a figure to be pitied,
and to be helped without delay. Under such circumstances
there was no room for casuistry in the mind of the aboli-
tionist. The response of his warm nature was as decisive as
his favorite passage of Scripture was imperative. The fugi-
tive was fed, clothed if necessary, and guided to another
friend farther on. But abolitionists were unwilling, for the
most part, to involve themselves more deeply in danger by
abducting slaves from thraldom. The Rev. John B. Mahan,
one of the early anti-slavery men of southern Ohio, expressed
this fact when he said, " I am confident that few, if any, for
various reasons, woulS^ invade the jurisdiction of another
state to give aid and encouragement to slaves to escape from
their owners. . . . " ^ And in northern Ohio, in so radical
a town as Oberlin, a famous station of the Underground
Road, we are told that there was no sentiment in favor of
enticing slaves away, and that this was never done except in
one case — by Calvin Fairbank, a student.^
1 History of Brown County, Ohio, p. 315.
'^ ConYersation with ex-President James H. Fairchild, Oberlin, 0., Aug. 3,
1892.
150
ABDUCTIONS BY NEGROES 151
The general disinclination to induce escapes of slaves,
either by secret invitation or by persons serving as guides,
renders the few cases conspicuous, and gives them consider-
able interest. When instances of this kind became known
to the slave-owners, as for example, by the arrest and im-
prisonment of some over-venturesome offender, the irritation
resulting on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line was apt to
be disproportionate to the magnitude of the cause. Never-
theless the aggravation of sectional feeling thus produced
was real, and was valued by some Northern agitators as a
means to a better understanding of the system of slavery.^
The largest number of abduction cases occurred through
the activities of those well-disposed towards fugitives by the
attachments of race. There were many negroes, enslaved
and free, along the southern boundaries of New Jersey, Penn-
sylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, whose opportuni-
ties were numerous for conveying fugitives to free soil with
slight risk to themselves. These persons sometimes did
scarcely more than ferry runaways across a stream or direct
them to the homes of friends residing near the line of a free
state. In the vicinity of Martin's Ferry, Ohio, there lived
a colored man who frequented the Virginia shore for the
purpose of persuading slaves to run away. He was in the
habit of imparting the necessary information, and then dis-
playing himself in an intoxicated condition, feigned or real,
to avoid suspicion. At last he was found out, but escaped
by betaking himself to Canada.^ In the neighborhood of
Portsmouth, Ohio, slaves were conveyed across the river by
one Poindexter, a barber of the town of Jackson.^ In
Baltimore, Maryland, two colored women, who engaged in
selling vegetables, were efficient in starting fugitives on the
way to Philadelphia.* At Louisville, Kentucky, Wash Sprad-
ley, a shrewd negro, was instrumental in helping many of
his enslaved brethren out of bondage.^ These few instances
1 See the Annual Eeports of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
2 Conversation with Mrs. Joel "Woods, at Martin's Ferry, Aug. 19, 1892.
' Conversation vrith Judge Jesse "W. Laird, Jackson, O., June, 1895.
* Conversation with Mr. Eohert Purvis, at Philadelphia, Dec. 23, 1895.
' Conversation with John Evans, at Windsor, Ont., C.W., Aug. 2, 1895 ;
152 UNDERGEOTJND RAILROAD
will suiBce to illustrate the secret enterprises conducted by
colored persons on both sides of the sectional line once divid-
ing the North from the South.
Another class of colored persons that undertook the work
of delivering some of their race from the cruel uncertainties
of slavery may be found among the refugees of Canada.
Describing the early development of the movement of slaves
to Canada, Dr. Samuel G. Howe says of these persons, " Some,
not content with personal freedom and happiness, went
secretly back to their old homes and brought away their
wives and children at much peril and cost." ^ It has been
stated that the number of these persons visiting the South
annually was about five hundred.^ Mr. D. B. Hodge, of
Lloydsville, Ohio, gives the case of a negro that went to
Canada by way of New Athens, and in the course of a year
returned over the same route, went to Kentucky, and brought
away his wife and two children, making his pilgrimage north-
ward again after the lapse of about two months.* Another
case, reported by Mr. N. C. Buswell, of Neponset, Illinois, is
as follows : A slave, Charlie, belonging to a Missouri planter
living near Quincy, Illinois, escaped to Canada by way of one
of the underground routes. Ere long he decided to return
and get his wife, but found she had been sold South. When
making his second journey eastward he brought with him
a family of slaves, who preferred freedom to remaining as the
chattels of his old master. This was the first of a number of
such trips made by the fugitive Charlie.* Mr. Seth Linton,^
who was familiar with the work on a line of this Road run-
ning through Clinton County, Ohio, reports that a fugitive
that had passed along the route returned after some months,
saying he had come back to rescue his wife. His absence in
the slave state continued so long that it was feared he had
been captured, but after some weeks he reappeared, bringing
John Evans was a slave near Louisville, but was given his liberty in 1850,
when his master became financially involved.
1 Howe, The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, p. 11.
2 Redpath, The Public Life of Captain John Brown, p. 229.
8 Letter from Mr. D. B. Hodge, Oct. 9, 1894.
* Letter from Colonel N. C. Buswell, March 13, 1896.
6 Letter from Seth Linton.
ABDUCTIONS BY WHITES 153
his wife and her father with him. He told of having seen
many slaves in the country and said they would be along as
soon as they could escape. The following year the Clinton
County line was unusually busy. A brave woman named
Armstrong escaped with her husband and one child to Canada
in 1842. Two years later she determined to rescue the re-
mainder of her family from the Kentucky plantation where
she had left them, and, disguised as a man, she went back to
the old place. Hiding near a spring, where her children
were accustomed to get water, she was able to give instructions
to five of them, and the following night she departed with
her flock to an underground station at Ripley, Ohio.*
Equally zealous in the slaves' behalf with the groups of
persons mentioned in the last two paragraphs were certain
individuals of Southern birth and white parentage, who found
the opportunity to conduct slaves beyond the confines of the
plantation states. Robert Purvis tells of the son of a planter,
who sometimes travelled into the free states with a retinue of
body-servants for the purpose of having them fall into the hands
of vigilant abolitionists. The author has heard similar stories
in regard to the sons of Kentucky slave-owners, but the names
of the parties concerned were withheld for obvious reasons.
John Fairfield, a Virginian, devoted much time and thought
to abducting slaves. Levi Coffin, who knew him intimately,
describes him as a person full of contradictions, who, al-
though a Southerner by birth, and living the greater part of
the time in the South, yet hated slavery ; a person lacking
in moral quality, but devoted to the interests of the slave.^
John Fairfield's ostensible business was, at times, that of a
poultry and provision dealer; and his views, when he was
among planters, were pro-slavery. Nevertheless his abiding
interest seems to have been to despoil slaveholders of their
human property. He made excursions into various parts of
the South, and led many companies safely through to Canada.
While Laura Haviland was serving as a mission teacher in
Canada West (1852-1853), Fairfield arrived at Windsor,
1 The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 39.
2 CofBn, JReminiscences, pp. 304, 305 ; letter of Miss H. N. Wilson, College
Hill, O., AprilU, 1892.
154 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
bringing with him twenty-seven slaves. Mrs. Haviland, who
witnessed the happy conclusion of this adventure, testifies
that it was but one of many, and that the abductor often
made expeditions into the heart of the slaveholding states to
secure his companies. On the occasion of the arrival of the
Virginian with the twenty-seven a reception and dinner were
given in his honor by appreciative friends in one of the
churches of the colored people, and a sort of jubilee was
celebrated. The ecstasies of some of the guests, among them
an old negro woman over eighty years of age, touched the
heart of their benefactor, who exclaimed, " This pays me for
all dangers I have faced in bringing this company, just to see
these friends meet." ^
Northern men residing or travelling in the South were some-
times tempted to encourage slaves to flee to Canada, or even
to plan and execute abductions. Jacob Cummings, a slave
belonging to a small planter, James Smith, of southeastern
Tennessee, was befriended by a Mr. Leonard, of Chattanooga,
who had become an abolitionist in Albany, New York, before
his removal to the South. Cummings was occasionally sent
on errands to Mr. Leonard's store. This gave the Northerner
the desired opportunity to show his slave customer where
1 Laura S. Haviland, A Woman's Life Work, p. 199.
In a letter dated Lawrence, Kan., March 23, 1893, Mr. Fitch Reed gives
some of the circumstances connected with the progress of this company-
through the last stages of its journey. He says : " In 1853, there came over
the road twenty-eight in one gang, with a conductor by the name of Fairfield,
from Virginia, who had aided in liberating all his father's and uncle's slaves,
and there was a reward out for him of five hundred dollars, dead or alive.
They had fifty-two rounds of arms, and were determined not to be taken
alive. Four teams from my house [in Cambridge, Mich.] started at sunset,
drove through Clinton after dark, got to Ypsilanti before daylight. Stayed
at Bro. Ray's through the day. At noon, Bro. M. Coe, from our station,
got on the cars and went to Detroit, and left Ray to drive his team. Coe in-
formed the friends of the situation, and made arrangements for their recep-
tion. The friends came out to meet them ten miles before we came to Detroit,
piloted us to a large boarding-house by the side of the river. Two hundred
abolitionists took breakfast with them just before daylight. "We procured
boats enough for Fairfield and his crew. As they pushed off from shore,
they all commenced singing the song, ' I am on my way to Canada, where
colored men are free,' and continued firing off their arms till out of hearing.
At eight o'clock, the ferry-boats started, and the station-keepers went over
and spent most of the day vrith them."
ABDUCTIONS BY -WHITES 155
Ohio and Indiana are on the map, and to advise him to go to
Canada. As Cummings had a "hard master" he did not
long delay his going. ^
The risks and costs of a long trip were not too great for the
enthusiastic abolitionist who felt that immediate rescue must
be attempted. One remarkable incident illustrates the de-
termination sometimes displayed in freeing a slave. Two
brothers from Connecticut settled in the District of Columbia
about the year 1848. They became gardeners, and employed
among their hands a colored woman, who was hired out to
them by her master. Soon after the passage of the Fugitive
Slave Law (1850) she came weeping to her employers with
the news that she was to be sold " down South." Stirred by
her impending misfortune, one of the brothers had a large
box made, within which he nailed the slave-woman and her
young daughter. With the box in his market-wagon he set
out on a long, arduous trip across Maryland and Pennsylvania
into New York. After three weeks of travel he reached his
journey's end at Wai-saw. Here he delivered his charge to
the care of friends, among whom they found a permanent
home.^
There were ardent abolitionists living almost within sight of
slave territory that had no scruples about helping slaves across
the line and passing them on to freedom. In 1836, Dr.
David Nelson, a Virginian, who had freed his slaves and moved
to Marion County, Missouri, and had there founded Marion
College, was driven into Illinois on account of his anti-slavery
views. He settled at Quincy, and soon established the Mission
Institute, which was chiefly a school for the education of mis-
sionaries. Mr. N. A. Hunt, now eighty-five years old but
apparently of clear mind, was a student in Mission Institute
in its early years. He relates an incident showing the spirit
existing in the school, a spirit that manifested itself a little
later in the actions of Messrs Burr, Work and Thompson.
His story is that Dr. Nelson came to him one day in the
1 Conversation with Jacob Cummings, Columbus, O., April, 1894.
' Conversation vrith the daughter mentioned, now the wife of William
Burghardt, Warsaw, N.Y., June, 1894. Article on the Underground Kail-
road in the History of Warsaw, New York.
156 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
spring of 1839 or 1840, and asked him to go with another
student across the Mississippi River and patrol the shore op-
posite Quincy. The students were to make signals at intervals
by tapping stones together, and if their signals were answered
they were to help such as needed help by conducting them
to a place of safety, a station on the Underground Railroad,
sixteen miles east of Quincy. The station could be easily
recognized, for it was a red barn. The time chosen for cross-
ing the river was always a Sunday night, a time known to be
the best for the persons sometimes found waiting on the other
side. This detailing of a watch from the school was regularly
done, although with what results is not known.^
Among the students attending this Institute in 1841 were
James E. Burr and George Thompson. These young men,
together with a villager, Alanson Work, arranged with two
slaves to convey them from bondage in Missouri. The ab-
ductors found themselves surrounded by a crowd of angry
Missourians, and were speedily committed to jail in Palmyra.
To insure the conviction of the prisoners three indictments
were brought against them, one charging them with " steal-
ing slaves, another with attempting to steal them, and the
other with intending to make the attempt." ^ Conviction was
a foregone conclusion. Work and his companions were pro-
nounced guilty and sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment.
These men were not required, however, to serve out their
terms. Mr. Work was pardoned after three and a half years
on the unjust condition that he return with his wife and chil-
dren to the State of Connecticut, his former residence. Mr.
Burr was released at the end of a little more than four years
and six months, and Mr. Thompson after nearly five years'
imprisonment. The anti-slavery character of Mission Insti-
tute at length brought down upon it the wrath of the Mis-
sourians. One winter night a party from Marion County
crossed the Mississippi River on the ice, stealthily marched
to the Institute, and set it on fire.^
1 Letter from N. A. Hunt, of Riverside, Cal., Feb. 12, 1891.
2 Quoted by Wilson, Bise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. II,
p. 7L
3 Asbury, History of Quincy, p. 74. The account of the Burr, Work and
Thompson case occupies pp. 72, 73 and 74 of Asbury's volume.
CALVIN FAIEBANK 157
In southern Indiana operations similar to those of the
students of the Mission Institute were carried on by a sup-
posedly inoffensive pedler of notions, Joseph Sider. With
his large convenient wagon Sider traversed some of the
border counties of Kentucky, supplying goods to his cus-
tomers ; one of his boxes was reserved for disguises for
negroes that wished to cast off the garments of slavery.
Sider's method involved the use of his vehicle for long trips
to the Ohio River, where the passengers were conveyed by
boat to a place of safety, and told to remain concealed until
the wagon and team could be transported by ferry the follow-
ing morning. So simple a plan did not excite suspicion, and
served to carry fugitives rapidly forward to some line of
underground traffic.^
Among those invasions of the South that caused consider-
able excitement at the time of their occurrence, the cases of
Calvin Fairbank, Seth Concklin and John Brown are notable ;
and accounts of them cannot well be omitted from these
pages, even though they may be more or less familiar to the
reader. Mr. Calvin Fairbank came of English stock, and
was born in Wyoming County, New York, in 1816. His
home training as well as his attendance at Oberlin College
furnished him with anti-slavery views, but the circumstance
to which he traced his hearty hatred of the Southern institu-
tion arose by chance, when as a boy he was attending quar-
terly meeting with his parents. "It happened that my
family was assigned," he relates, " to the good, clean home
of a pair of escaped slaves. One night after service I sat on
the hearthstone before the fire, and listened to the woman's
story of sorrow. . . . My heart wept, my anger was kindled,
and antagonism to slavery was fixed upon me." ^ In the
spring of 1837 young Fairbank was sent by his father down
the Ohio River in charge of a raft of lumber. A little below
Wheeling he saw a large, active-looking, black man on the
Virginia shore, going to the woods with his axe. He found
1 E. Hicks Trueblood, "Reminiscences of the TTnderground Railroad," in
the BepubUcan Leader, Salem, Ind., March 16, 1894.
2 Sev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times, or How the Way was
Prepared. Edited from his manuscript. Pp. 1-7.
158 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
the woodsman to be a slave, soon gained his confidence, and
set him across the river on the raft. A few days later Mr.
Fairbank moored his rude craft, and landed on the Ken-
tucky shore opposite the mouth of the Little Miami River.
Here he was approached by an old slave-woman, who sought
the liberation of her seven children. The matter was easily
arranged, and after dark the seven were speedily conveyed
across the river.^/
The rescue of Lewis Hayden and his family was the means
of bringing Mr. Fairbank to the penitentiary, while it opened
to his friend Hayden an honorable career in New England.
Mr. Hayden became a respected citizen of Boston, and helped
to organize the Vigilance Committee for the purpose of pro-
tecting the refugees that were settling in the city ; in course
of time he came to serve in the legislature of the State of
Massachusetts. His wife, who survived him, made a bequest
of an estate of about five thousand dollars to Harvard Uni-
versity to found a scholarship for the benefit of deserving
colored students.^ The story of Hayden's delivery and of
his own imprisonment is best told in Mr. Fairbank's words :
" Lewis Hayden . . . was, when a young man, . . . the
property of Baxter and Grant, owners of the Brennan House,
in Lexington. Hayden's wife, Harriet, and his son, a lad of
ten years when I first knew them, were the slaves of Patrick
Baine. On a September evening in 1844, accompanied by
Miss D. A. Webster, a young Vermont lady, who was associ-
ated with me in teaching, I left Lexington with the Haydens,
in a hack, crossed the Ohio River on a ferry at nine the next
morning, changed horses, and drove to an Underground Rail-
road depot at Hopkins, Ohio, where we left Hayden and his
family. . . . When Miss Webster and I returned to Lexing-
ton, after two days' absence, we were both arrested, charged
by their master with helping Hayden's wife and son to es-
cape. We were jointly indicted, but Miss Webster was tried
first and sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the peni-
tentiary at Frankfort. . . . While my case was still pending
I learned that the governor was inclined to pardon Miss
1 Mev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times, pp. 12-14.
2 Boston Weekly Transcript, Dec. 29, 1893.
CALVIN FAIEBAIIK 159
Webster, but first insisted tbat I sbould be tried. Wben
called up for trial in February, 1845, I pleaded guilty, and
received a sentence of fifteen years. I served four years and
eleven months, and then, August 23, 1849, was released by
Governor John J. Crittenden, the able and patriotic man
who afterwards saved Kentucky to the Union." ^
In spite of his incarceration for aiding slaves to escape, and
in the face of the heavier penalties laid by the new Fugitive
Slave Law, passed shortly after his release from prison, Cal-
vin Fairbank was soon engaged in similar enterprises. He
declares, " I resisted its [the law's] execution whenever and
wherever possible." ^ A little more than two years after his
pardon Mr. Fairbank was again arrested, this time in Indiana,
for carrying off Tamar, a young mulatto woman, who was
claimed as property by A. L. Shotwell, of Louisville, Ken-
tucky. Without process of law Mr. Fairbank was taken from
the State of Indiana to Louisville, where he was tried in
February, 1853. He was again sentenced to the state prison
for a term of fifteen years, and while there was frequently
subjected to the most brutal treatment. Altogether Mr.
Fairbank spent seventeen years and four months of his life
in prison for abducting slaves ; he says that during his second
term he received at the hands of prison officials thirty-five
thousand stripes.^ Having served more than twelve years of
his second sentence, he was pardoned by acting Governor
Richard T. Jacob. It was a singular occurrence that finally
enabled Mr. Fairbank to regain his liberty. Among the
friends upon whose favor he could rely was the lieutenant-
governor of Kentucky, Richard T. Jacob, the son-in-law of
Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri. Mr. Jacob was a man of
strong anti-slavery tendencies, notwithstanding his political
prominence and his private interests as a wealthy planter.
The governor, Thomas E. Bramlette, was opposed to extend-
ing the executive clemency to so notorious an offender as
Mr. Fairbank. Early in 1864 General Speed S. Fry was
detailed by President Lincoln to enroll all the negroes of
1 The Chicago Tribune, Sunday, Jan. 29, 1893.
2 Ibid.
' Bev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times, pp. 138, 144.
160 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Kentucky, but he came into collision with Governor Bram-
lette, who sought to prevent General Fry from carrying out
his orders. Upon receiving information to this effect the
President summoned the executive of Kentucky to Washing-
ton to answer to charges ; and thereupon Mr. Jacob became
acting governor. On his first day in office the new executive
of Kentucky was accosted by General Fry with the remark,
" Governor, the President thinks it would be well to make
this Fairbank's day." On the morning following, the prisoner
received a full and free pardon.^
Mr. Fairbank gives many interesting devices that he
employed in his work to throw off pursuit. "Forty-seven
slaves I guided toward the north star, in violation of the
state codes of Virginia and Kentucky. I piloted them through
the forests, mostly by night ; girls, fair and white, dressed as
ladies; men and boys, as gentlemen, or servants; men in
women's clothes, and women in men's clothes ; boys dressed
as girls, and girls as boys ; on foot or on horseback, in
buggies, carriages, common wagons, in and under loads of
hay, straw, old furniture, boxes and bags ; crossing the Jor-
dan of the slave, swimming or wading chin deep ; or in boats,
or skiffs ; on rafts, and often on a pine log. And I never
suffered one to be recaptured." ^
About 1850, Seth Concklin, a resident of Philadelphia,
learned of the remarkable escape of Peter Still from Alabama
to the Quaker City. Here the runaway was most happily
favored in finding friends. WiUiam Still, his brother, from
whom he had been separated by kidnappers long years
before, was discovered almost immediately in the office of
the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society; and Seth Concklin
soon proffered himself as an agent to go into the South and
bring away Peter Still's family. The fugitive himself first
visited Alabama to see what could be done for his wife and
children; but failing to accomplish anything he gratefully
accepted the offer of the daring Philadelphian. Mr. Conck-
lin expected to assume the character of a slave-owner and
1 Sev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times, pp. 11, 104-143. See also
the Chicago Tribune, Sunday, Jan. 29, 1893, p. 33.
^ Sev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times, pp. 10 and 11.
SETH CONCKLIN 161
bring the Stills away as his servants ; he found, however, that
the steamboats on the Tennessee River were too irregular to
be depended on. He therefore returned north to Indiana,
and arranged for the escape of the slave family across that
state to Canada. The story of his second attempt at the
South has a tragic ending, notwithstanding its favorable
beginning. Having made a safe start and a long journey of
seven days and nights in a rowboat the whole party was
captured in southwestern Indiana. A letter from the Rev.
N. R. Johnston to William Still, written soon after the catas-
trophe, gives the following account of the affair : " On last
Tuesday I mailed a letter to you, written by Seth ConckUn.
I presume you have received that letter. It gave an account
of the rescue of the family of your brother. If that is the
last news you have had from them I have very painful intel-
ligence for you. They passed on (north) from near Prince-
ton, where I saw them. ... I think twenty-three miles
above Vincennes, Ind., they were seized by a party of men,
and lodged in jail. Telegraphic despatches were sent all
through the South. I have since learned that the marshal
of Evansville received a despatch from Tuscumbia to look
out for them. By some means, he and the master, so says
report, went to Vincennes and claimed the fugitives, chained
Mr. Concklin, and hurried all off. . . ." ^ In a postscript,
the same letter gave the rumor of Seth Concklin's escape
from the boat on which he was being carried South ; but the
newspapers brought reports of a different nature. Their
statements represented that the man "Miller" — that is,
ConckUn — " was found drowned, with his hands and feet in
chains and his skull fractured." ^ The version of the trag-
edy given by the claimant of the fugitives, McKiernon, was
as follows : " Some time last march a white man by the name
of Miller appeared in the nabourhood and abducted the
above negroes, was caught at vincanes, Indi. with said ne-
groes and was thare convicted of steling and remanded back
to Ala. to Abide the penalty of the law and on his return
1 Letter dated Evansville, Ind., March 31, 1851. Printed in Still's Under-
ground Railroad Becords, pp. 30, 31.
' Still, Underground Railroad Becords, p. 31.
M
162 UNDEKGROTIND RAILBOAD
met his Just reward by getting drowned at the mouth of
Cumberland River on the Ohio in attempting to make his
escape." ^ Just how Concklin met his death will probably
always remain a mystery. McKiernon's letter offered terms
for the purchase of the poor slaves, but they were so exorbi-
tant that they could not be accepted. Besides, it was not
deemed proper to jeopardize the life of another agent on a
mission so dangerous.
It is well known that John Brown aided fugitive slaves
whenever the opportunity occurred, as did his Puritan-bred
father before him. We have no record, however, of his ab-
ducting slaves from the South except in the case of his
famous raid into Missouri in 1858. This exploit has a pecul-
iar interest for us, not only as one of the most notable ab-
ductions, but as being, in a special way, the prelude of that
great plan in behalf of the enslaved that he sought to carry
out at Harper's Ferry. After Captain Brown's return from
the Eastern states to Kansas in 1858, he and his men en-
camped for a few days at Bain's Fort. While here. Brown
was appealed to by a slave, Jim Daniels, the chattel of one
James Lawrence, of Missouri. Daniels had heard of Captain
Brown, and, securing a permit to go about and sell brooms,
had used it in making his way to Brown's camp.'' His
prayer was " For help to get away," because he was soon to
be sold, together with his wife, two children and a negro
man.' Such a supplication could not be made in vain to
John Brown. On the following night (December 20)
Brown's raid into Missouri was made. Brown himself gives
the account of it : * " Two small companies were made up to
go to Missouri and forcibly liberate the five slaves, together
1 Still, Underground Hailroad Records, p. 35. Letter dated South
Florence, Ala., Aug. 6, 1851.
2 Conversation with Samuel Harper and his wife, Jane Harper, the two
surviving members of the company of slaves escorted to Canada by Brown in
March, 1859. Their home since has been in or about Windsor. I found
them there in the early part of August, 1895.
' Halloway, History of Kansas. Quoted from John Brown's letters, Jan-
uary, 1859 (pp. 539-545).
* In a letter written by Brown, January, 1859, to the Neio York Tribune,
in which paper it was published. It was also published in the Lawrence
(Kansas) Bepublican. See Sanborn's Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 481.
&0
CO
5
JOHN BROWN'S RAID INTO MISSOURI 163
with otlier slaves. One of these companies I assumed to di-
rect. We proceeded to the place, surrounded the buildings,
liberated the slaves, and also took certain property supposed
to belong to the estate.
" We, however, learned before leaving that a portion of the
articles we had taken belonged to a man living on the planta-
tion as a tenant, and who was supposed to have no interest
in the estate. We promptly returned to him all we had taken.
We then went to another plantation, where we found five
more slaves ; took some property and two white men. We
moved all slowly away into the territory for some distance
and then sent the white men back, telling them to follow us
as soon as they chose to do so. The other company freed
one female slave, took some property, and, as I am in-
formed, killed one white man (the master) who fought
against liberation. . . ."^
The company responsible for the shooting of the slave-
owner, David Cruse, was in charge of Kagi and Charles
Stephens, also known as Whipple. When this party came
to the house of Mr. Cruse the family had retired. There was
no hesitation, however, on the part of the strangers in request-
ing quarters for the night. Mrs. Cruse, her suspicions fully
aroused, handed her husband his pistol. Jean Harper, the
slave-woman that was taken from this house, asserts that her
master would certainly have fired upon the intruders had not
Whipple used his revolver first, with deadly effect. When
the two squads came together the march back to Bain's Fort
was begun. On the way thither Brown asked the slaves if
they wanted to be free, and then promised to take them to a
free country. Thus was Brown led to undertake one of his
boldest adventures, one of the boldest indeed in the history of
the Underground Road. With a mere handful of men he pur-
posed to escort his band of freedmen on a journey of twenty-
five hundred miles to Canada, in the dead of winter, and
surrounded by the dangers that the publicity of his foray and
the announcement of a reward of three thousand dollars for
his arrest were likely to bring upon him. Brown and his
1 SanTjom, lAfe and Letters of John Brown, pp. 482, 483 ; also Redpath,
The Public Life of Captain John Brown, pp. 219, 220.
164 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
company tarried only one day at Bain's Fort ; then proceeded
northward by way of Topeka to the place of his friend, Dr.
Doyle, five miles beyond, and then by way of Osawattomie,
Holton and the house of Major J. B. Abbot near Lawrence,
into Nebraska. Lawrence was reached January 24, 1859.
At Holton a party of pursuers, two or three times as large
as Brown's company, was dispersed in instant and ridiculous
flight, and four prisoners and five horses were taken. The
trip, after leaving Holton, was made amidst great perils.
Under an escort of seventeen " Topeka boys " Brown pressed
rapidly on to Nebraska City. At this point the passage
of the Missouri was made on the ice, and the liberators
with their charges arrived at Tabor in the first week of
February. Here, Brown met with rebuff, "contrary to his
expectation, and contrary to the whole former attitude
of the people," we are told, "he was not welcomed, but,
at a public meeting called for the purpose, was severely
reprimanded as a disturber of the peace and safety of the
village. Effecting a hasty departure from Tabor, and taking
advantage of the protection offered by a few friendly families
on the way, he and his party of fugitives came, on February
20, 1859, to Grinnell, Iowa, where they were cordially received
by the Hon. J. B. Grinnell, who entertained them in his house.
Brown's next stop was made at Springdale, which place he
reached on February 25. Here the fugitives were distributed
among the Quaker families for safety and rest before continu-
ing the journey to Canada. But soon rumors were afloat
of the coming of the United States marshal, and it became
necessary to secure for the negroes railroad transportation
to Chicago. Kagi and Stephens, disguised as sportsmen,
walked to Iowa City, enlisted the services of Mr. William
Penn Clark, an influential anti-slavery citizen of that place, and
by his efforts, supplemented by those of Hon. J. B. Grinnell,
a freight car was got and held in readiness at West Liberty.
The negroes were then brought down from Springdale (dis-
tant but six miles) and, after spending a night in a grist-mill
near the railway station, were ready to embark." ^ They were
1 Irving B. Richman, John Brown among the Quakers, and Other Sketches,
pp. 46, 47, 48.
EFFECT OF BROWN'S RAID 165
stowed away in the freight-car by Brown, Kagi and Stephens,
and the car was made fast to a train from the West on the
Chicago and Rock Island Road. " On reaching Chicago,
Brown and his party were taken into friendly charge by
Allen Pinkerton, the famous detective, and started for De-
troit. On March 10 they were in Detroit and practically at
their journey's end."^ On the twelfth the freedmen were,
under Brown's direction, ferried across the Detroit River
to Windsor, Canada.
The trip from southern Kansas to the Canadian destination
had consumed three weeks. The restoration of twelve per-
sons to " their natural and inalienable rights with but one man
killed " ^ was a result which Brown seems to have regarded as
justifiable, but one the tragedy of which he certainly deplored.^
The manner in which this result had been accomplished was
highly dramatic, and created great excitement throughout the
country, especially in Missouri. Brown's biographer, James
Redpath, writing in 1860, speaks thus of the consternation
in the invaded state : " When the news of the invasion of
Missouri spread, a wild panic went with it, which in a few
days resulted in clearing Bates and Vernon counties of their
slaves. Large numbers were sold south; many ran into the
Territory and escaped ; others were removed farther inland.
When John Brown made his invasion there were five hundred
slaves in that district where there are not fifty negroes now." *
The success of the expedition just narrated was well fitted
to increase confidence in John Brown's determination, and to
arouse enthusiasm among his numerous refugee friends in
Canada. The story of the adventure was not unlikely to
penetrate the remote regions of the South, and perhaps find
lodgment in the retentive memories of many slaves. The
publication in the New York Tribune of his letter defending
his abduction of the Missouri chattels just as he was begin-
• Irving B. Eiehman, John Brown among the Quakers, and Other Sketches,
pp. 46, 47, 48.
2 Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 483. See the letter
of "The Parallels."
' Hinton, John Brown and His Men, p. 221.
* Redpath, The Public Life of Captain John Broion, p. 221.
166 UNDERGROUND RAELROAD
ning his journey east shows that Brown was not unwilling
to have his act widely known. It was almost the middle
of March when Brown arrived in Canada ; his letter had been
made public in January ; it had had ample time for circula-
tion. Before he left Kansas he said significantly, " He would
soon remove the seat of the trouble elsewhere," ^ and it was
but six months after his arrival in Canada that the attack on
Harper's Ferry was made.
For more than ten years John Brown had cherished a plan
for the liberation of the slaves, in which abduction was to
be in a measure employed. This plan he had revealed to
Frederick Douglass as early as 1847. It is given in Douglass'
words : " ' The true object to be sought,' said Brown, 'is first
of all to destroy the money value of slave property ; and that
can only be done by rendering such property insecure. My
plan then is to take at first about twenty-five picked men, and
begin on a small scale ; supply them arms and ammunition ;
post them in squads of five on a line of twenty-five miles, the
most persuasive and judicious of whom shall go down to the
fields from time to time, as opportunity offers, and induce
the slaves to join them, seeking and selecting the most rest-
less and daring.' . . . With care and enterprise he thought
he could soon gather a force of one hundred hardy men. . . .
When these were properly drilled, . . . they would run off
the slaves in larger numbers, retain the brave and strong ones
in the mountains, and send the weak and timid to the North
by the Underground Railroad: his operations would be en-
larged with increasing numbers, and would not be confined
to one locality. ... ' If,' said Brown, ' we could drive sla-
very out of one county, ... it would weaken the system
throughout the state.' The enemy's country would afford
subsistence, the fastnesses of the AUeghanies abundant pro-
tection, and a series of stations through Pennsylvania to the
Canadian border a means of egress for timid slaves." ^
The plot, as disclosed eleven years later to Richard J. Hin-
ton (September, 1858) by Brown's lieutenant, Kagi, contains
1 Hinton, John Brown and His Men, p. 222, note.
" Life of Frederick Douglass, 1881, pp. 280, 281 and 318, 319. Also Hin-
ton, John Brown and His Men, pp. 30, 31, 32.
BKOWN'S PLAN OF LIBERATION 167
some additional details of interest. Hinton says : " The
mountains of Virginia were named as the place of refuge,
and as a country admirably adapted in which to carry on
a guerilla warfare. In the course of the conversation,
Harper's Ferry was mentioned as a point to be seized — but
not held - — on account of the arsenal. The white members of
the company were to act as officers of different guerilla bands,
which, under the general command of John Brown, were to
be composed of Canadian refugees, and the Virginian slaves
who would join them. . . . They anticipated, after the first
blow had been struck, that, by the aid of the free and Cana-
dian negroes who would join them, they could inspire confi-
dence in the slaves, and induce them to rally. No intention
was expressed of gathering a large body of slaves, and re-
moving them to Canada. On the contrary, Kagi clearly
stated, in answer to my inquiries, that the design was to
make the fight in the mountains of Virginia, extending it
to North Carolina and Tennessee, and also to the swamps
of South Carolina, if possible. Their purpose was not the
expatriation of one or a thousand slaves, but their liberation
in the states wherein they were born, and were now held in
bondage. . . . Kagi spoke of having marked out a chain
of counties extending continuously through South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. He had traveled over a
large portion of the region indicated, and from his own per-
sonal knowledge and with the assistance of the Canadian
negroes who had escaped from those States, they had arranged
a general plan of attack. . . . They expected to be speedily
and constantly reinforced ; first, by the arrival of those men
who, in Canada, were anxiously looking and praying for the
time of deliverance, and then by the slaves themselves. . . .
The constitution adopted at Chatham [in the spring of 1858]
was intended as the framework of organization among the
emancipationists, to enable the leaders to effect a more com-
plete control of their forces. . . ." ^ A comparison of these
two versions of Brown's plan of liberation leads to the con-
clusion that the abduction of slaves to the North was a
1 Hinton, John Brown and His Men, Appendix, pp. 673, 674, 675. Also
Eedpath, The Public Life of Captain John Brown, pp. 203, 204, 205. •
168 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
measure to which the liberator never attached more impor-
tance than as a means of ridding his men of the care of
helpless slaves; the brave he would use in organizing an
insurrection amid the mountains of the Southern states that
should wipe away the curse of slavery from the country.
It will be remembered that the occasion, if not the cause,
of John Brown's raid into Missouri was the solicitation of
aid by a slave for himself and companions. Such prayers
for succor were not infrequently addressed to abolitionists
by those in bonds or by their refugee friends. In the anti-
slavery host there were many whose principles wavered not
under any test applied to them, and whose impulses urged
them upon humanitarian missions, however hemmed in by
difficulties and dangers. Among those who heard and an-
swered the cry of the slave were the Rev. Charles T. Torrey,
Captain Jonathan Walker, Mrs. Laura S. Haviland, Captain
Daniel Drayton, Richard Dillingham, William L. Chaplin
and Josiah Henson.
The variety of persons represented in this short, incomplete
list is interesting : Mr. Torrey was a Congregational clergy-
man of New England stock, and had been educated at Yale
College ; Messrs. Walker and Drayton were masters of sailing
vessels, and came from the states of Massachusetts and New
Jersey respectively ; Mrs. Haviland was a Wesleyan Metho-
dist, who founded a school or institute in southeastern Michi-
gan for both white and colored persons ; Richard Dillingham
was a Quaker school-teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio ; William L.
Chaplin began his professional life as a lawyer in eastern
Massachusetts, but soon became the editor of an anti-slavery
newspaper ; and Josiah Henson was a fugitive slave, one of
the founders of the Dawn Institute in Canada West. With
the exception of the last named they were white persons,
whose sense of the injustice of slavery caused them to take
a stand that shut them out of that conventionally respectable
society to which their birth, education and talents would have
admitted them.
In 1838 Charles T. Torrey resigned from the pastorate of
a Congregational church in Providence, Rhode Island, and
relinquished ease and quiet to engage in the anti-slavery
CHARLES T. TOEREY 169
struggle then agitating the country. He became a lecturer
and a newspaper correspondent, and, early in the forties, the
editor of a paper called The Patriot, at Albany, New York.
While acting as Washington correspondent for several
Northern papers he attended a convention of slave-owners
at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1842, and was thrust into jail
on the score of being an abolitionist. He was released after
several days, having been placed under bonds to keep the
peace. While in prison he solemnly reconsecrated himself
to the work of freeing the slaves. Within a year from this
time a refugee entreated Mr. Torrey to help him bring his
wife and children from Virginia. The errand was under-
taken, but came to a most mournful end. Arrested and
imprisoned, Mr. Torrey with others attempted to break jail ;
he was betrayed, however, and at length, December 30,
1843, sentenced to the penitentiary for six years. Under the
severities of prison life Mr. Torrey's health gave way. His
pardon was sought by friends, but mercy was withheld from
a man the depth of whose conviction made recantation im-
possible. In December, 1844, he wrote : " I cannot afford to
concede any truth or principle to get out of prison. I am
not rich enough." While his trial was pending he wrote his
friend, Henry B. Stanton : " If I am a guilty man, I am a very
guilty one; for I have aided nearly four hundred slaves to
escape to freedom, the greater part of whom would probably,
but for my exertions, have died in slavery." Concerning this
confession Henry Wilson writes : " This statement was corrob-
orated by the testimony of Jacob Gibbs, a colored man, who
was Mr. Torrey's chief assistant in his efforts." ^ On May 9,
1846, Mr. Torrey died in prison. In death as in life, the
lesson of the clergyman's career proclaimed but one truth,
the injustice of slavery. When the remains of Mr. Torrey
were conveyed to Boston for interment in the beautiful
cemetery at Mt. Auburn, the use of Park Street Church, at
first granted, was later refused to the brother-in-law of the
dead minister, although as a worshipper he was entitled to
Christian courtesy. Tremont Temple was procured for the
funeral services, and was thronged by a multitude eager to
1 "Wilson, Biae and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. n, p. 80.
170 UNDEEGEOUND EAILEOAD
do honor to a life of self-sacrifice, and show disapproval of
the affront to the dead. A large meeting in Faneuil Hall
on the evening of the funeral day paid tribute to the memory
of the liberator. The occasion was made memorable by a
poem by James Russell Lowell, and addresses by General
Fessenden of Maine, Henry B. Stanton and Dr. Walter
Channing. Whittier wrote: "His work for the poor and
helpless was well and nobly done. In the wild woods of
Canada, around many a happy fireside and holy family altar,
his name is on the lips of God's poor. He put his soul in
their soul's stead; he gave his life for those who had no
claim on his love save that of human brotherhood." ^
In 1844, the year after Mr. Torrey's disastrous attempt to
abduct a slave-family, Captain Jonathan Walker was made
a victim of the law on account of friendly offices undertaken
in behalf of some trusting negroes. Once, while on the
coast of Florida, Mr. Walker consented to ferry seven slaves
from Pensacola to one of the neighboring Bahama Islands,
where they might enjoy the freedom vouchsafed by English
law. In the open boat used for the purpose Captain Walker
suffered sunstroke, and on this account his craft was over-
hauled, and the escaping party was taken into custody.
After two trials Captain Walker was condemned to punish-
ments that remind one strongly of the barbarous penalties
inflicted upon offenders in the reign of Charles the First of
England : he was sentenced to stand in the pillory ; to be
branded on the hand with the letters S. S. (slave-stealer) ; to
pay a fine and serve a term of imprisonment for each slave
assisted ; to pay the costs of prosecution ; and to stand com-
mitted until his fines should be paid. His treatment in
prison was brutal, but he was not obliged to endure it long,
for, by the intervention of friends, his fines were paid, and
he was released in the summer of 1848. Subjected to indig-
nities and disgrace in the South, Captain Walker was the
recipient of many demonstrations of approval on his return
to the North. Whittier blazoned his stigmas into a prophecy
1 Quoted by "Wilson, in his History of the Bise and Fall of the Slave Power
in America, Vol. II, p. 80.
CAPTAIN JONATHAN WAXKEK 171
of deliverance for the slave. In a poem of welcome the dis-
tinguished Quaker wrote :
" Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave,
Its branded palm shall prophesy ' Salvation to the Slave.'
Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel." i
These words were set to music by Mr. George W. Clark, and
sung by him with thrilling effect at many anti-slavery gather-
ings throughout New England. Mr. Walker became at once
a conspicuous witness against the slave power in the great
trial that was then going forward at the bar of public opinion.
At Providence, Rhode Island, his return from the Florida
prison was heralded, and a large reception was given him,
attended by the Hon. Owen Lovejoy, brother of the martyr
Love joy, Milton Clark, the white slave, and Lewis, his brother.
It is said that three thousand people crowded the seats, aisles
and doorways of the reception haU. In company with Mr.
George W. Clark, Captain Walker was drafted into the work
of arousing the masses, and the two agitators received a cor-
dial hearing at many New England meetings. Doubtless the
recital of the Captain's experiences intensified anti-slavery
feeling throughout the Northern states.^
About 1847, Mrs. Laura S. Haviland accepted a mission to
find the family of one John White, a slave, who had escaped
from the South and was serving as a farm-hand in the neigh-
borhood of Mrs. Haviland's school in southeastern IMichigan.
Mrs. Haviland went to Cincinnati where she consulted with
the Vigilance Committee, and thence to Rising Sun, Indiana,
to secure the services of several of John White's colored
friends. Here a plan was formed for i\Irs. Haviland to go
into Kentucky to the plantation where the family lived, and,
disguised as a berry picker, see the wife, inform her of her
''■Liberator, Aug. 15, 1845, "The Branded Hand," quoted in part by
WUson, History of the Bise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol.
H, p. 83; Whittier's Poetical Works, Vol. Ill, Riverside edition, 1896,
p. 114.
' Reminiscences written by George W. Clark, by request, have been used
to secure an intimate acquaintance with some of the men engaged iu the
nnderground service.
172 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
husband's whereabouts, and offer to assist in her rescue. Ac-
complishing this errand and returning across the border into
Indiana, Mrs. Haviland awaited the slave-woman's appear-
ance; but her escape had been prevented by the vigilance
evoked on account of the operations of counterfeiters in
Kentucky. Then John White started South intent on
saving his wife and children from slavery, but his efforts
also were unsuccessful, and he was thrown into a Kentucky
jail. However, he was soon released by Laura Haviland,
who purchased him for three hundred and fifty dollars.^
In the summer of 1847, Captain Daniel Drayton sailed to
Washington with a cargo of oysters, and while his boat was
lying at the wharf he was cautiously approached by a negro,
who wanted to get passage North for a woman and five chil-
dren. The negro said the woman was a slave but that she
had, under an agreement with her master, more than paid
for her liberty, and when she asked for her " free papers "
the master only answered by threatening to sell her South.^
Captain Drayton allowed the woman and her children and a
niece to stow themselves on board his vessel, and he soon
landed them at Frenchtown, to the great joy of the woman's
husband, who was awaiting them there.
It was by the suggestion of these fugitives that Captain Dray-
ton undertook his important expedition with the schooner PearZ
in 1848. On the evening of April 18 his boat was made fast
at one of the Washington docks ready to receive a company
of fugitives. The time seemed auspicious. The establish-
ment of the new French Republic was being celebrated in
the city by a grand torchlight procession, and slaves were
left for the most part to their own devices. Thus favored, a
large number escaped to the small craft of Captain Drayton
and were carefully stowed away. The start was made with-
out incident, and the vessel continued quietly on her course
to the mouth of the Potomac; there, contrary winds were
encountered, and the Pearl was brought to shelter in Corn-
field Harbor, one hundred and forty miles from Washington.
The disappearance of seventy-six slaves at one time caused
1 Laura S. Haviland, A Woman's Life Work, pp. 91-110.
2 Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, 1853, p. 23.
DRAYTON'S EXPEDITION WITH THE "PEAEL" 173
great excitement at the Capitol. The method of their depart-
ure was revealed by a colored hackman, who had driven two
of the fugitives to the wharf. An armed steamer was sent
in pursuit, and the Pearl was obliged to surrender. Her
arrival under guard at Washington was the occasion for re-
joicing to an infuriated mob of several thousand persons.
The slaves were committed to jail as runaways ; their helpers
were with difficulty protected from murderous violence, and
were escorted to the city prison. Under instructions from
the district attorney twenty-four indictments were found
against both Captain Drayton and his mate, Mr. Sayres.
When the trial began in July, the list of indictments pre-
sented comprised forty-one counts against each of these pris-
oners. Three persons were prosecuted; and the aggregate
amount of their bail was two hundred and twenty-eight thou-
sand dollars. After two trials the accused were heavily sen-
tenced, and remanded to jail until their fines should be paid.
The sentence passed upon Captain Drayton required the pay-
ment of fines and costs together amounting to ten thousand
and sixty dollars, and until paid the prisoner must remain in
jail indefinitely.^ His accomplices were treated with equal
severity. Such penalties were accounted monstrous by the
friends of the convicted, and efforts were constantly made to
have the sentences mitigated or revoked. In 1852 Senator
Sumner interested himself in behalf of the imprisoned liber-
ators ; and President Fillmore was induced to grant them an
unconditional pardon.
The occurrence of these events at the national capital dur-
ing a session of Congress, gave them a significance they would
not otherwise have had. That they would become the subject of
much fierce debate was assured by the presence in Congress
of such champions as Messrs. Giddings and Hale for the anti-
slavery party, and Messrs. Foote, Toombs, Calhoun and Davis
for the pro-slavery party. Mr. Calhoun expressed the view
of the South when, speaking upon a resolution brought be-
fore the Senate by Mr. Hale, April 20, he recorded himself
as being in favor of an act making penal " these atrocities,
these piratical attempts, these wholesale captures, these rob-
1 Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, p. 102.
174 UNDERGEOXIND RAILKOAD
beries of seventy odd of our slaves at a single grasp." In
this and in similar utterances made at the time, he fore-
shadowed the determination of the South to have a law
that would restrain if possible from all temptations to aid
or abet the escape of slaves. The result of this determina-
tion is seen in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
This notable voyage of the Pearl, which caused so great an
excitement at the time, has been frequently chronicled, while
the experiences of the young Quaker, Richard Dillingham,
have been seldom recounted, though marked by the same ele-
ments of daring and resignation. In December, 1848, the
close of the year of the PearVs adventure, Mr. Dillingham
was solicited by some colored people in Cincinnati, Ohio, to
go to Tennessee and bring away their relatives, who were
slaves under a " hard master " at Nashville. He entered upon
the project, made his way into the very heart of the South and
arranged with the slaves for their escape. At the time ap-
pointed his thi'ee prot^g^s were placed in a closed carriage
and driven rapidly away, Mr. Dillingham following on horse-
back. The party got as far as Cumberland bridge, where
they were betrayed by a colored man in whom confidence had
been placed, and the fugitives and their benefactor were ar-
rested. Mr. Dillingham was committed to jail, and his bail
was fixed at seven thousand dollars. At his trial, which
occurred April 12, 1849, Dillingham confessed, and asked
for clemency, urging by way of explanation the dependence
of his aged parents upon him as a stay and protection. As
to the crime for which he was held he said fi-ankly: "I
have violated your laws. . . . But I was prompted to it by
feelings of humanity. It has been suspected . . . that I
was leagued with a fraternity who are combined for the pur-
pose of committing such offences as the one with which I am
charged. But . . . the impression is false, I alone am guilty,
I alone committed the offence, and I alone must suffer the
penalty. ..." Yielding to his plea for clemency the jury
returned a verdict for three years in the penitentiary, the
mildest sentence allowed by the law for the offence. The
Nashville Daily G-azette of April 13 did not conceal the
fact that Mr. Dillingham belonged to a respectable family,
RICHARD DILLINGHAM AND WILLIAM L. CHAPLIN 175
and stated that he was not without the sympathy of those
who attended the trial.^ The prisoner himself was most
grateful for the consideration shown him, and, in a letter to
his betrothed written two days after his trial, he spoke of his
short sentence with the deepest gratitude and thankfulness
toward the court and jury and the prosecutors themselves.
" My sentence," he added, " is far more lenient than my most
sanguine hopes have ever anticipated." ^ The termination
of the imprisonment of Dillingham was most melancholy.
Separated from his aged parents, to whom he was devoted,
and from the woman that was to have become his wife,
his health soon proved unequal to the severe experiences
of prison life; his keepers after nine months gave him
respite from heavy work about the prison, and assigned him
the place of steward in the hospital. He had not long been
in his new station when cholera broke out among the con-
victs, and his services were in constant demand. His strength
was soon exhausted, and about the first of August, 1850,
he succumbed to the dread epidemic raging in the prison.^
It was the year in which young Dillingham came to his
melancholy end that Mr. William L. Chaplin was found
guilty of an offence similar to that for which Dillingham
suffered.* When Mr. ChETrles T. Torrey, editor of the Albany
Patriot, was sent to the Maryland penitentiary for aiding
slaves to escape, Mr. Chaplin assumed control of Mr. Torrey's
paper. Like his predecessor, Mr. Chaplin spent part of his
time in the city of Washington reporting congressional pro-
ceedings for the Patriot, and like him could not be deaf to
an entreaty in behalf of slaves. In 1850 Mr. Chaplin was
prevailed upon to attempt the release from bondage of two
1 A. L. Benedict, Memoir of Richard Dillingham, 1852, p. 18. Also Harriet
Beecher Stows, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, pp. 58, 59.
2 A. L. Benedict, Memoir of JRichard Dillingham, p. 18.
' This account of Richard Dillingham is ha-sed on the Memoir written by
his friend, A. L. Benedict, a Quaker, and puhlished in 1852. Abridged
versions of this memoir will be found in the Reminiscences of Levi Coffin,
Appendix, pp. 713-718 ; and Howe's Sistorical Collections of Ohio, Vol. II,
p. 590.
* Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Fewer in America,
Vol. n, pp. 80-82.
176 UNDEEGROUND RAILROAD
negroes, one the property of Eobert Toombs, the other, of
Alexander H. Stephens. The sequel to this enterprise is
thus recounted by Mr. George W. Clark, an intimate friend
of General Chaplin's: "Suspicion was somehow awakened
and watch set; the General was intercepted, arrested and
imprisoned, and the attempt failed. The General gave bail.
Secretary Seward being on his bond for five thousand dollars.
While passing through Baltimore on his return home he was
rearrested and put into . . . prison there, on a charge of aiding
slaves to escape from that state. The bonds required were
twenty thousand dollars. ... It was arranged that William
R. Smith, a noble and generous-hearted Quaker, and George
W. Clark should traverse the State and appeal to the friends
of humanity for contributions to save the General from the
fate we feared awaited him, for if his case went to trial he
would probably be sentenced to fifteen years in their State
Prison, which would no doubt amount to a death sentence.
William R. Smith and I went to work in live earnest. An
abolition merchant, Mr. Chittenden of New York, gave us
three thousand dollars, the always giving Gerrit Smith gave
us five thousand, other friends gave us two thousand, but
we still lacked ten thousand. . . . We were in great distress
and anxiety over the extreme situation when the generous
Gerrit Smith voluntarily came again to the rescue and ad-
vanced the other ten thousand dollars." It was in this way,
through the most open-handed generosity of his friends, that
Mr. Chaplin was enabled to go free after being in jail only
five months. Prudence dictated the sacrificing of the exces-
sive bail rather than the braving of fortune through a trial
certain to end in conviction.
We have thus far considered the recorded efforts toward
the abduction of slaves made by six persons in response to the
entreaty of the slaves concerned or of some of their friends.
It is noteworthy that in the case of five of these persons their
efforts, first or last, were calamitous, and that all were white
persons. We come now to the case of Josiah Henson, excep-
tional in the series, by reason of the uniform success of his
endeavors, and because of his race connections. Born and
bred a slave, Henson at length resolved to extricate himself
JOSIAH HENSON 177
and family from the abjectness of their situation. "With
a degree of prudence, courage and address," says Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe, "which can scarcely find a parallel in any
history, he managed with his wife and two children to escape
to Canada. Here he learned to read, and, by his superior
talent and capacity for management, laid the foundation for
the fugitive settlement of Dawn. . . . " ^ The possession of
the qualities indicated in this characterization of Mr. Henson
rendered him equal to such emergencies as arose in his
missions to the South in search of friends and relatives of
Canadian refugees.
Mr. Henson has left us the record of two journeys to the
Southern states, made at the instance of James Lightfoot,
a refugee of Fort Erie, Ontario.^ Lightfoot had a number
of relatives in slavery near Maysville, Kentucky, and was
ready to use the little property he had accumulated during
the short period of his freedom in securing the liberation of
his family. Beginning the journey alone, Mr. Henson travelled
on foot about four hundred miles through New York, Penn-
sylvania and Ohio, to his destination. The fact that the
Lightfoots decided it to be unsafe to make their escape at this
time did not prevent their visitor from agreeing to come a
year later for them, nor did it prevent him from returning to
Canada with companions. He went nearly fifty miles into the
interior of Kentucky, where, as he learned, there was a large
party eager to set out for a land of freedom, but waiting until
an experienced leader should appear. In Bourbon County he
found about thirty fugitives collected from different states,
and with these he started northward. Mr. Henson gives his
itinerary in the following words : " We succeeded in crossing
the Ohio River in safety, and arrived in Cincinnati the third
night after our departure. Here we procured assistance ; and,
after stopping a short time to rest, we started for Richmond,
Indiana. This is a town which had been settled by Quakers,
and there we found friends indeed, who at once helped us on
our way, without loss of time ; and after a difficult journey
^ A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1853, Boston edition of 1896, pp. 274,
275 ; also Father Benson's Story of Sis Own Life, 1858, chaps, xii, xlii.
2 Father Benson's Story of Bis Own Life, chaps, xvi, xvii.
178 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
of two weeks through the wilderness, reached Toledo, Ohio,
. . . and there we took passage for Canada." ^ In the autumn
of the year following this abduction Mr. Henson again visited
Kentucky. This time several of the Lightfoots were willing
to go North with him, and a Saturday night after dark was
chosen as the time for setting out. In spite of some untoward
happenings during the early part of the journey, and of pur-
suit even to Lake Erie, the daring guide and his party of four
or five were put aboard a sailing-vessel and safely landed on
Canadian soil. " Words cannot describe," writes Mr. Henson,
" the feelings experienced by my companions as they neared
the shore ; their bosoms were swelling with inexpressible joy
as they mounted the seats of the boat, ready eagerly to spring
forward, that they might touch the soil of the freeman. And
when they reached the shore they danced and wept for joy,
and kissed the earth on which they first stepped, no longer
the Slave, but the Free.'''' Mr. Henson asserts, that "by
similar means to those above narrated," he was "instrumental
in delivering one hundred and eighteen human beings " from
bondage.^
Important and interesting among the abductors are the few
individuals that we must call, for want of a better designation,
the devotees of abduction. We have already considered a
person of this type in the odd character, John Fairfield, the
Vir^nian. There are several other persons known to have
been not less zealous than he in their violation of what were
held in the South to be legitimate property rights. The
names of these adventurous liberators are Rial Cheadle, Alex-
ander M. Ross, Elijah Anderson, John Mason and Harriet
Tubman.
Rial Cheadle appears to have been a familiar figure among
the abolitionists of southeastern Ohio. Mr. Thomas L. Gray,
a reputable citizen of Deavertown, Ohio, for many years en-
gaged in underground operations in Morgan County, vouches
for the extended and aggressive work of Cheadle, who fre-
quently stopped at Mr. Gray's house for rest and refreshment
1 Father Henson' s Story of His Own Life, pp. 149, 150.
2 Ibid., pp. 162, 163.
RIAL CHEADLE 179
on his midnight trips to Zanesville and stations farther on.^
Cheadle seems to have been a man of eccentricities, if not of
actual aberration of mind ; or his oddities may have been as-
sumed to prevent himself being taken seriously by those he
wanted to despoil. He is said to have lived in Windsor
Township, Morgan County, Ohio, on the site of the present
village of Stockport, and to have engaged in teaching and
other occupations for a time ; finally, however, he devoted him-
self to the work of the Underground Road. He indulged him-
self in old-time minstrelsy, composing songs, which he sang for
the entertainment of himself and others, and he thereby in-
creased, doubtless, the reputation for harmless imbecility, which
he seems to have borne among those ignorant of his purpose.
He paid occasional visits to Virginia. "As a result it is
said the slaves were frequently missing, but as his arrange-
ments were carefully made the object of his visit was usually
successful. . . . His habits were so well known to those who
gave food and shelter to the negro that they were seldom un-
prepared for a nocturnal visit from him. . . . After the
Emancipation, he said he was like Simeon of old, ' ready to
depart.' He died in 1867." 2
A man differing greatly from Rial Cheadle in all respects,
save the intensity of his compassion for the slave, was the
abductor Alexander M. Ross. Born in 1832 in the Prov-
ince of Ontario, Canada, Mr. Ross sought, when a yo^g
man, to inform himself upon the question of American
slavery, not only from the teachings of some of the fore-
most anti-slavery leaders of England and the United States,
but also from the recital of their experiences by a number of
fugitive slaves that had found an asylum in the province of
his birth. While he was engaged in making inquiries among
the refugees. Uncle Tom's Cabin was published, and brought
conviction to many minds. "To me," writes Mr. Ross, "it
was a command. A deep and settled conviction impressed
1 The New Lexington (Ohio) Tribune, -winter of 1885-1886. Some in-
formation in regard to Cheadle appears in a series of articles on the Under-
ground Railroad contributed to this paper by Mr. Gray.
2 History of Morgan County, Ohio, 1886, published by Charles Robertson,
M.D., article on the Underground Railroad.
180 tTNDEEGROUND BAILROAD
me that it was my duty to lielp the oppressed to free-
dom. . . . My resolution was taken to devote all my en-
ergies to let the oppressed go free." ^ In accordance with
this resolution young Ross left Canada in November, 1856.
He visited Gerrit Smith, at Peterboro, New York, who was
ever ready to encourage the liberation of the slave, and who
went with him to Boston, New York and Philadelphia, and
westward into the states of Ohio and Indiana. The purpose
of these travels was, evidently, to acquaint the intending
liberator with the means to be employed by him in his new
work, and with the persons in connection with whom he was
to operate. Indeed, Mr. Ross distinctly says, in speaking of
these visits, "I was initiated into a knowledge of the relief
societies, and the methods adopted to circulate information
among the slaves of the South; the routes to be taken by
the slaves, after reaching the so-called free states ; and the
relief posts, where shelter and aid for transportation could be
obtained." ^ His chief supporters, besides Gerrit Smith, were
Theodore Parker and Lewis Tappan.*
During his expeditions Mr. Ross spread the knowledge of
Canada among the slaves in the neighborhood of a number of
Southern cities, such as Richmond, Virginia, Nashville, Ten-
nessee, Columbus and Vicksburg, Mississippi, Selma and
Huntsville, Alabama, Augusta, Georgia, and Charleston,
South Carolina. His method of procedure was fixed in its
details only after his arrival upon the scene of action; an
ostensible interest or purpose was kept to the fore, and the
real business of spreading the gospel of escape was reserved
for clandestine conferences with slaves chosen on the score of
intelligence and trustworthiness. These persons were in-
formed how Canada could be best reached, and were told to
spread with care the information among their fellows. If
any decided within a few days that they would act upon the
advice given them, explicit instructions were repeated to
1 Dr. Alexander Milton Ross, Recollections and Experiences of an Aboli-
tionist; from 1855 to 1865, 2d ed., 1876, p. 3. The first edition of tMs
book was issued in 1867. Por this and other works of Mr. Ross see Promi-
nent Men of Canada, pp. 118, 119, 120.
^ Ross, Recollections and, Experiences of an Abolitionist, p. 5.
8 Ibid., p. 8.
3 5,
ALEXAJSTDER M. ROSS 181
them, and they were supplied with compasses, knives, pistols,
money and such provisions as they needed. Thus equipped,
they were started on their long and dangerous journey. Oc-
casionally, when circumstances seemed to require it, Mr. Ross
would personally guide the party to a station of the Under-
ground Road, or even accompany it to Canada ; otherwise he
betook himself in haste to some new field of labor. The un-
impeachable character of Mr. Ross, and the early appearance
of the first edition of his Recollections make his reminiscences
especially valuable and worth quoting. Mr. Ross began his
work at Richmond early in the year 1857. His narrative of
his first venture is as follows : " On my arrival in Richmond,
I went to the house of a gentleman to whom I had been
directed, and who was known at the North to be a friend of
freedom. I spent a few weeks in quietly determining upon
the best plans to adopt. Having finally decided upon my
course, I invited a number of the most intelligent, active and
reliable slaves to meet me at the house of a colored preacher,
on a Sunday evening. On the night appointed for this meet-
ing, forty-two slaves came to hear what prospect there was
for an escape from bondage. ... I explained to them my
. . . purpose in visiting the slave states, the various routes
from Virginia to Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the names of
friends in border towns who would help them on to Canada.
I requested them to circulate this information discreetly
among all upon whom they could rely. ... I requested as
many as were ready to accept my offer, to come to the same
house on the following Sunday evening, prepared to take
the ' Underground Railroad ' to Canada.
" On the evening appointed nine stout, intelligent young
men declared their determination to gain their freedom, or
die in the attempt. To each I gave a few dollars in money,
a pocket compass, knife, pistol, and as much cold meat and
bread as each could carry with ease. I again explained to
them the route. ... I never met more apt students than
these poor fellows. . . . They were to travel only by night,
resting in some secure spot during the day. Their route was
to be through Pennsylvania, to Erie on Lake Erie, and from
thence to Canada. ... I learned, many months after, that
182 UKDEEGROtrND EAILROAB
they all had arrived safely in Canada. (In 1863 I enlisted
three of these brave fellows in a colored regiment in Phila-
delphia, for service in the war that gave freedom to their
race.)" ^
Mr. Ross was a naturalist, and his tastes in this direction
furnished him many good pretexts for excursions. A jour-
ney into the far South was made in the guise of an ornithol-
ogist. Describing his trip to the cotton states Mr. Ross
says : " Finally my preparations were completed, and, sup-
plied with a shot-gun and materials for preserving bird-skins,
I began my journey into the interior of the country. . . .
Soon after my arrival at Vicksburg I was busily engaged in
collecting ornithological specimens. I made frequent visits
to the surrounding plantations, seizing every favorable op-
portunity to converse with the more intelligent slaves.
Many of these negroes had heard of Canada from the ne-
groes brought from Virginia and the border slave states ;
but the impression they had was, that Canada being so far
away, it would be useless to try and reach it. On these ex-
cursions I was usually accompanied by one or two smart,
intelligent slaves, to whom I felt I could trust the secret of
my visit. In this way I succeeded in circulating a know-
ledge of Canada, and the best means of reaching that coun-
try, to all the plantations for many miles around Vicksburg.
... I continued my labors in the vicinity of Vicksburg
for several weeks and then went to Selma, Alabama." ^
In the ways described in these selections Mr. Ross induced
companies of slaves to exchange bondage for freedom. How
many he thus liberated we have, of course, no means of
knowing. The risks he ran were such as to put his life in
danger almost constantly. Betrayal would have ended,
probably, in a lynching ; and the disappearance simultane-
ously of a band of fugitives and the unknown naturalist was
a coincidence not only sure to be noticed, but also widely
published, thus increasing the dangers many fold. It is un-
necessary to recount the occasions upon which the scientist
found himself in danger of falling a victim to his zeal in
1 Ross, Secollections and Experiences of an Abolitionist, pp. 10, 11, 12.
2 Ihid., pp. 37, 38, 39.
JOHN MASON 183
befriending slaves. Suffice it to say, his adventures all had
a fortunate termination. Mr. Ross is best known by his
numerous works relating to the flora and fauna of Canada,
for which he received recognition among learned men, and
decoration at the hands of European princes." ^
Elijah Anderson, a negro, has been described by Mr. Rush
R. Sloane, an underground veteran of northwestern Ohio, as
the " general superintendent " of the underground system in
this section of Ohio. Mr. Anderson's work began before the
enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and continued
until the time of his incarceration in the state prison at
Frankfort, Kentucky, where he died in 1857. During this
period his activity must have been unceasing, for he is
quoted as having said in 1855 that he had conducted in all
more than a thousand fugitives from slavery to freedom,
having brought eight hundred away after the passage of the
act of 1850. Not all of these persons were piloted to San-
dusky, although that city was the point to which Anderson
usually conveyed his passengers. After the opening of the
Cleveland and Cincinnati Railroad he took many to Cleve-
land.2
The last two of the devotees of abduction to be considered
in this chapter are persons that were themselves fugitive
slaves, John Mason and Harriet Tubman.
Our only source of information about John Mason is an
account printed in 1860, by the Rev. W. M. Mitchell, a col-
ored missionary sent to minister to the refugees of Toronto
by the American Baptist Free Mission Society.' This may be
1 Mr. Richard J. Hinton in his book entitled John Brown and His Men,
p. 171, while writing of Captain Brown's convention at Chatham, Canada
West, mentions Mr. Eoss in the following words: "Dr. Alexander M. Eoss
of Toronto, Canada, physician and ornithologist, who is still living, honored
by all who know him, then a young (white) man who devoted himself for
years to aiding the American slave, was a frequent visitor to this section
(Chatham). He was a faithful friend of John Brown, efificient as an ally,
seeking to serve under all conditions of need and peril."
More or less extended notices of Dr. Ross and his work have appeared
during the past few years ; for example, in the Toronto Globe, Dec. 3 and
10, 1892 ; in the Canadian Magazine of Politics, Science, Art and Litera-
ture, May, 1896 ; and in the Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean, March 18, 1896.
2 The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 44. » See p. 3, Chapter L
184 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
accepted as a credible source. The author has printed in the
little book in which the account appears testimonials that
serve to identify him, but better than these are the references
found in the body of the book to underground matters per-
taining to southern Ohio that have been made familiar
through other channels of information. The statements of
Mr. Mitchell, thus supported, lend the color of probability to
other statements of his not corroborated by any information
now to be obtained, especially since these are in keeping with
known manifestations of liberating zeal. We may therefore
use the narrative relating to John Mason with a certain de-
gree of assurance as to its accuracy.
While engaged in Underground Railroad operations in Ohio
Mr. Mitchell became acquainted with John Mason, a fugitive
slave from Kentucky. He had obtained his liberty but was
not content to see his fellows go without theirs, and " was
willing," wrote Mr. Mitchell, "to risk the forfeiture of his
own freedom, that he might, peradventure, secure the liberty
of some. He commenced the perilous business of going into
the State from whence he had escaped and especially into his
old neighborhood, decoying off his brethren to Canada. . . .
This slave brought to my house in nineteen months 265 hu-
man beings whom he had been instrumental in redeeming
from slavery ; all of whom I had the privilege of forwarding
to Canada by the Underground Railroad. . . . He kept no
record as to the number he had assisted in this way. I have
only been able, from conversations with him on the subject,
to ascertain about 1,300, whom he delivered to abolitionists
to be forwarded to Canada. Poor man ! he was finally cap-
tured and sold. He had been towards the interior of Ken-
tucky, about fifty miles ; it was while returning with four
slaves that he was captured. . . . Daylight came on them,
they concealed themselves under stacks of corn, which served
them for food, as well as protection from the weather and
passers-by. . . . Late in the afternoon of that day, in the
distance was heard the baying of negro-hounds on their track;
escape was impossible. . . . When the four slaves saw their
masters they said, ' J. M., we can't fight.' He endeavored to
rally their courage . . . but to no purpose. . . . Their leader
HARRIET TUBMAN THE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE 185
resisted, but both his arms were broken, and his body other-
wise abused. . . . Though he had changed his name, as most
slaves do on running away, he told his master's name and to
him he was delivered. He was eventually sold and was
taken to New Orleans. . . . Yet in one year, five months,
and twenty days, I received a letter from this man, John
Mason, from Hamilton, Canada West. Let a man walk abroad
on Freedom's Sunny Plains, and having once drunk of its
celestial ' stream whereof maketh glad the city of our God,'
afterward reduce this man to slavery, it is next to an impos-
sibility to retain him in slavery." ^
Harriet Tubman, like John Mason, did not reckon the
value of her own liberty in comparison with the hberty of
others who had not tasted its sweets. Like him, she saw in
the oppression of her race the sufferings of the enslaved
Israelites, and was not slow to demand that the Pharaoh of
the South should let her people go. She was known to many
of the anti-slavery leaders of her generation ; her personality
and her power were such that none of them ever forgot the
high virtues of this simple black woman. Governor William
H. Seward, of ISTew York, wrote of her : " I have known Har-
riet long, and a nobler, higher spirit or a truer, seldom dwells
in human form." ^ Gerrit Smith declared : " I am convinced
that she is not only truthful, but that she has a rare discern-
ment, and a deep and sublime philanthropy." ^ John Brown
introduced her to Wendell Phillips in Boston, saying, " I bring
you one of the best and bravest persons on this continent —
General Tubman as we call her." * Frederick Douglass testi-
fied : " Excepting John Brown, of sacred memory, I know of
no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hard-
ships to serve our enslaved people than you have. Much that
1 Mitchell, The Underground Railroad, p. 20 et seg.
" Sarah H. Bradford, Harriet the Moses of Her People, p. 76. See also
Appendix, p. 137. These testimonials were given in 1868 and were printed
in connection with a short biography of Harriet in the year mentioned. The
first edition of this biography has not been accessible to me, but it is mentioned
by the Rev. Samuel J. May in his Becollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict,
published the following year. The second edition of the book appeared in
1886.
' Ibid., p. 139. * Hinton, John Brown and His Men, p. 173.
186 UNDEKGROUND RAILROAD
you have done would seem improbable to tliose who do not
know you as I know you. . . ."^ Mr. F. B. Sanborn said:
"She has often been in Concord, where she resided at the
houses of Emerson, Alcott, the Whitneys, the Brooks family,
Mrs. Horace Mann, and other well-known persons. They all
admired and respected her, and nobody doubted the reality of
her adventures. . . ."^ The Rev. S. J. May knew Harriet per-
sonally, and speaks with admiration, not only of the work she
did in emancipating numbers of her own people, but also of
the important services she rendered the nation during the
Civil War both as a nurse and as " the leader of soldiers in
scouting-parties and raids. She seemed to know no fear and
scarcely ever fatigue. They called her their Moses." ^
The name, Moses, was that by which this woman was
commonly known. She earned it by the qualities of leader-
ship displayed in conducting bands of slaves through devious
ways and manifold perils out of their " land of Egypt." She
first learned what liberty was for herself about the year
1849. She made her way from Maryland, her home as a
slave, to Philadelphia, and there by industry gathered to-
gether a sum of money with which to begin her humane and
self-imposed labors. In December, 1850, she went to Balti-
more and abducted her sister and two children. A few
months later she brought away another company of three per-
sons, one of whom was her brother. From this time on tiU
the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion her excursions were
frequent. She is said to have accomplished nineteen such
trips, and emancipated over three hundred slaves.* As may
be surmised, she had encouragement in her undertakings ;
but her main dependence was upon her own efforts. AU
her wages were laid aside for the purpose of emancipating
her people. Whenever she had secured a sufficient sum,
she would disappear from her Northern home, work her
passage South, and meet the band of expectant slaves, whom
she had forewarned of her coming in some mysterious way.
1 Mrs. Bradford, Harriet the Moses of Her People, p. 135.
2 Ibid., pp. 136, 137. 8 Ibid., p. 406.
^ James Freeman Clarke, Anti-Slavery Days, pp. 81, 82. Also M. 6.
McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 62.
HARKIET TUBMAN THE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE 187
Her sagacity was one of her most marked traits ; it was
displayed constantly in her management of her little cara-
vans. Thus she would take the precaution to start with her
pilgrims on Saturday night so that they could be well along
on their journey before they were advertised. Posters giv-
ing descriptions of the runaways and offering a considerable
reward for their arrest were a common means of making
public the loss of slave property. Harriet often paid a
negro to follow the man who posted the descriptions of her
companions and tear them down. When there were babies
in the party she sometimes drugged them with paregoric and
had them carried in baskets. She knew where friends could
be found that would give shelter to her weary freedmen. If
at any stage of the journey she were compelled to leave her
companions and forage for supplies she would disclose her-
self on her return through the strains of a favorite song : —
Dark and thorny is de pathway,
Where de pilgrim makes his ways ;
But beyond dis vale of sorrow,
Lie de fields of endless days.
Sometimes when hard pressed by pursuers she would take
a train southward with her companions ; she knew that no
one would suspect fugitives travelling in that direction.
Harriet was a well-known visitor at the offices of the anti-
slavery societies in Philadelphia and New York, and at first
she seems to have been content if her prot^g^s arrived safely
among friends in either of these cities ; but after she com-
prehended the Fugitive Slave Law she preferred to accom-
pany them aU the way to Canada. " I wouldn't," she said,
" trust Uncle Sam wid my people no longer." ^ She knew
the need of discipline in effecting her rough, overland
marches, and she therefore required strict obedience of her
followers. The discouragement of an individual could not
be permitted to endanger the liberty and safety of the whole
party; accordingly she sometimes strengthened the fainting
heart by threatening to use her revolver, and declaring,
" Dead niggers teU no tales, you go on or die." She was
1 Mrs. Bradford, Harriet the Moses of Her People, p. 39.
188 UNDERGROUND RAILEOAD
not less lenient with herself. The safety of her companions
was her chief concern ; she would not allow her labors to be
lightened by any course likely to increase the chances of
their discovery. On one occasion, while leading a company,
she experienced a feeling that danger was near ; unhesitat-
ingly she decided to ford a river near by, because she must
do so to be safe. Her followers were afraid to cross, but
Harriet, despite the severity of the weather (the month was
March), and her ignorance of the depth of the stream,
walked resolutely into the water and led the way to the op-
posite shore. It was found that oiificers were lying in wait
for the party on the route first intended.
Like many of her race Harriet was a thorough-going
mystic. The Quaker, Thomas Garrett, said of her : "...
I never met with any person, of any color, who had more
confidence in the voice of God, as spoken to her soul. She
has frequently told me that she talked with God, and he
talked with her, every day of her life, and she has declared to
me that she felt no more fear of being arrested by her former
master, or any other person, when in his immediate neighbor-
hood, than she did in the State of New York, or Canada, for
she said she never ventured only where God sent her. Her
faith in the Supreme Power truly was great." ^ This faith
never deserted her in her times of peril. She explained her
many deliverances as Harriet Beecher Stowe accounted for
the power and effect of Uncle TorrCs Cabin. She insisted it
was all God's doing. " Jes so long as he wanted to use me,"
said Mrs. Tubman, " he would take keer of me, an' when he
didn't want me no longer, I was ready to go. I always tole
him, I'm gwine to hole stiddy on to you, an' you've got to
see me trou." ^
In 1857, Mrs. Tubman made what has been called her
most venturesome journey. She had brought several of her
brothers and sisters from slavery, but had not hit upon a
method to release her aged parents. The chief difficulty lay
in the fact that they were unable to walk long distances. At
length she devised a plan and carried it through. A home-
1 Mrs. Bradford, Harriet the Moses of Her People, pp. 83, 84.
2 lUci., p. 61,
HARRIET TUBMAN THE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE 189
made conveyance was patched together, and an old horse
brought into use. Mr. Garrett describes the vehicle as con-
sisting of a pair of old chaise-wheels, with a board on the
axle to sit on and another board swinging by ropes from the
axle on which to rest their feet. This rude contrivance
Harriet used in conveying her parents to the railroad, where
they were put aboard the cars for Wilmington ; and she fol-
lowed them in her novel vehicle. At Wilmington, Friend
Garrett was sought out by the bold abductor, and he furnished
her with money to take all of them to Canada. He after-
wards sold their horse and sent them the money. Harriet
and her family did not long remain in Canada ; Auburn,
New York, was deemed a preferable place ; and here a small
property was bought on easy terms of Governor Seward, to
provide a home for the enfranchised mother and father.
Before Harriet had finished paying for her bit of real es-
tate, the Civil War broke out. Governor Andrew of Massa-
chusetts, appreciating the sagacity, bravery and kindliness of
the woman, soon summoned her to go into the South to serve
as a scout, and when necessary as a hospital nurse. That her
services were valuable was the testimony of officers under
whom she served; thus General Rufus Saxton wrote in
March, 1868 : " I can bear witness to the value of her services
in South Carolina and Florida. She was employed in the
hospitals and as a spy. She made many a raid inside the
enemies' hues, displaying remarkable courage, zeal and
fidelity." i
At the conclusion of the great struggle Harriet returned
to Auburn, where she has lived ever since. Her devotion to
her people has never ceased. Although she is very poor and
is subject to the infirmities of old age, infirmities increased in
her case by the effects of iU treatment received in slavery,
she has managed to transform her house into a hospital,
where she provides and cares for some of the helpless and
deserving of her own race.^
1 Mrs. Bradford, Sarriet the Moses of Her People, Appendix, p. 142.
^Lillie B. C. "Wyman, in the New England Magazine, March, 1876,
pp. 117, 118. Conversation with Harriet Tubman, Cambridge, Mass., April
8, 1897.
CHAPTER VII
LIFE OF THE COLOKED KEFT7GEES IN CANADA
The passengers of the Underground Railroad had but one
real refuge, one region alone within whose bounds they could
know they were safe from reenslavement ; that region was
Canada. The position of Canada on the slavery question was
peculiar, for the imperial act abolishing slavery throughout
the colonies of England was not passed until 1833 ; and,
legally, if not actually, slavery existed in Canada until that
year. The importation of slaves into this northern country
had been tolerated by the French, and later, under an act
passed in 1790, had been encouraged by the English. It is a
singular fact that while this measure was in force slaves
escaped from their Canadian masters to the United States,
where they found freedom.^ Before the separation of the
Upper and Lower Provinces in 1791, slavery had spread
westward into Upper Canada, and a few hundred negroes and
some Pawnee Indians were to be found in bondage through
the small scattered settlements of the Niagara, Home and
Western districts.
The Province of Upper Canada took the initiative in the
restriction of slavery. In the year 1793, in which Congress
provided for the rendition by the Northern states of fugitives
from labor, the first parliament of Upper Canada enacted a
1 "A case of this kind," says Dr. S. G. Howe, "was related to us by
Mrs. Amy Martin. Slie says : " My father's name was James Ford. . . .
He . . . would he over one hundred years old, if he were now living. . . .
He was held here (in Canada) by the Indians as a slave, and sold, I think
he said, to a British officer, who was a very cruel master, and he escaped
from him, and came to Ohio, ... to Cleveland, I believe, first, and made
his way from there to Erie (Pa.), where he settled. . . . When we were in
Erie, we moved a little way out of the village, and our house was ... a
station of the U. G. R. R." The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West,
by S. 6. Howe, 1864, pp. 8, 9.
190
A GROUP OF REFUGEE SETTLERS, OF WINDSOR, ONTARIO.
MES. ANNE MARY JANE HUNT, MANSFIELD SMITH, MRS. LUCINDA SEYMOUR,
HENRY STEVENSON, BUSH JOHNSON.
(From a recent photograph.)
DISAPPEAKAJ^CE OF SLAVERY EEOM CANADA 191
law against the importation of slaves, and incorporated in it
a clause to the effect that children of slaves then held were
to become free at the age of twenty-five years.^ Nevertheless,
judicial rather than legislative action terminated slavery in
Lower Canada, for a series of three fugitive slave cases oc-
curred between the first day of February, 1798, and the last
day of February, 1800. The third of these suits, known as
the Robin case, was tried before the full Court of King's
Bench, and the court ordered the discharge of the fugitive
from his confinement. Perhaps the correctness of the de-
cisions rendered in these cases may be questioned ; but it is
noteworthy that the provincial legislature would not cross
them, and it may therefore be asserted that slavery really
ceased in Lower Canada after the decision of the Robin case,
February 18, 1800.^
The seaboard provinces were but little infected by slavery.
Nova Scotia, to which probably more than to any other of these,
refugees from Southern bondage fled, had by reason of natural
causes, lost nearly, if not quite all traces of slavery by the
beginning of our century. The experience of the eighteenth
century had been sufficient to reform public opinion in
Canada on the question of slavery, and to show that the
climate of the provinces was a permanent barrier to the
profitable employment of slave labor.
During the period in which Canada was thus freeing her-
seK from the last vestiges of the evil, slaves who had escaped
from Southern masters were beginning to appeal for protection
to anti-slavery people in the Northern states.^ The arrests of
refugees from bondage, and the cases of kidnapping of free
negroes, which were not infrequent in the North, strength-
ened the appeals of the hunted suppliants. Under these
circumstances, it was natural that there should have arisen
early in the present century the beginnings of a movement
on the northern border of the United States for the purpose
of helping fugitives to Canadian soil.*
1 Act of 30th Geo. m.
2 See the article entitled "Slavery in Canada," by J. C. Hamilton, LL.B.,
in the Magazine of American History, Vol. XXV, pp. 233-236.
' M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 20.
* Ibid., p. 60 ; K. C. Smedley, Underground Eailroad, p. 26.
192 UNDEEGBOUND RAILROAD
Upon the questions how and when this system arose, we
have both unofficial and official testimony. Dr. Samuel G.
Howe learned upon careful investigation, in 1863, that the
early abolition of slavery in Canada did not affect slavery in
the United States for several years. " Now and then a slave
was intelligent and bold enough," he states, "to cross the
vast forest between the Ohio and the Lakes, and find a refuge
beyond them. Such cases were at first very rare, and know-
ledge of them was confined to few; but they increased early
in this century ; and the rumor gradually spread among the
slaves of the Southern states, that there was, far away under
the north star, a land where the flag of the Union did not
float ; where the law declared all men free and equal ; where
the people respected the law, and the government, if need be,
enforced it. . . . Some, not content with personal freedom and
happiness, went secretly back to their old homes, and brought
away their wives and children at much peril and cost. The
rumor widened ; the fugitives so increased, that a secret
pathway, since called the Underground Railroad, was soon
formed, which ran by the huts of the blacks in the slave
states, and the houses of good Samaritans in the free states.
. . . Hundreds trod this path every year, but they did not
attract much public notice." ^ Before the year 1817 it is
said that a single little group of abolitionists in southern
Ohio had forwarded to Canada by this secret path more than
a thousand fugitive slaves.^ The truth of this account is
confirmed by the diplomatic negotiations of 1826 relating to
this subject. Mr. Clay, then Secretary of State, declared the
escape of slaves to British territory to be a " growing evil " ;
and in 1828 he again described it as still "growing," and
added that it was well calculated to disturb the peaceful
relations existing between the United States and the adjacent
British provinces. England, however, steadfastly refused to
accept Mr. Clay's proposed stipulation for extradition, on the
ground that the British government could not, " with respect
to the British possessions where slavery is not admitted, de-
1 S. G. Howe, The Eefugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 11, 12.
2 William Birney, James G. Birney and His Times, p. 435.
nCFLUX OF FUGITIVES INTO CANADA 193
part from the principle recognized by the British courts that
every man is free who reaches British ground." ^
During the decade between 1828 and 1838 many persons
throughout the Northern states, as far west as Iowa, had
cooperated in forming new lines of Underground Railroad
with termini at various points along the Canadian frontier.
A resolution submitted to Congress in December, 1838, was
aimed at these persons, by calling for a bill providing for the
punishment, in the courts of the United States, of all persons
guilty of aiding fugitive slaves to escape, or of enticing them
from their owners.^ Though this resolution came to nought,
the need of it may have been demonstrated to the minds of
Southern men by the fact that several companies of runaway
slaves were organized, and took part in the Patriot War of
this year in defence of Canadian territory against the attack
of two or three hundi'ed armed men from the State of New
York. 3
Each succeeding year witnessed the influx into Canada of
a larger number of colored emigrants from the South. At
length, in 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law called forth such
opposition in the North that the Underground Railroad
became more efficient than ever. The secretary of the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society wrote in 1851 that,
"notwithstanding the stringent provisions of the Fugitive
Bill, and the confidence which was felt in it as a certain cure
for escape, we are happy to know that the evasion of slaves
was never greater than at this moment. All abolitionists, at
any of the prominent points of the country, know that appli-
cations for assistance were never more frequent." * This
statement is substantiated by the testimony of many persons
who did underground service in the North.
1 Mr. Gallatin to Mr. Clay, Sept. 26, 1827, Mies' Eegister, p. 290.
2 Congressional Globe, Twenty-fifth Congress, Third Session, p. 34.
' The Patriot War defeated a foolhardy attempt to induce the Province of
Upper Canada to proclaim its independence. The refugees were by no
means willing to see a movement begun, the success of which might "break
the only arm interposed for their security." J. W. Loguen as a Slave and
as a Freeman, p. 344.
* Nineteenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society,
January, 1851, p. 67.
194 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
From the other end of the line, the Canadian terminus,
we have abundant evidence of the lively traffic both before
and after the new act. Besides the later investigations of
Dr. Howe we have the statement of a contemporary, still
living. Anthony Bingey, of Windsor, Ontario, aided the Rev.
Hiram Wilson and the Rev. Isaac J. Rice, two graduates of
Hamilton College, in the conduct of a mission for refugees.
Mr. Bingey first settled at Amherstburg, at the mouth of the
Detroit River, where he kept a receiving station for fugitives,
was in an excellent place for observation, and was allied
with trained men, who gave themselves, in the missionary
spirit, to the cause of the fugitive slave in Canada. When
Mr. Bingey first went to Amherstburg, in 1845, it was a rare
occurrence to see as many as fifteen fugitives arrive in a
single company. In the course of time runaways began to
disembark from the ferries and lake boats in larger numbers,
a day's tale often running as high as thirty. Through the
period of the Mexican War, and down to the beginning of
Fillmore's administration, many of the fugitives from the
South had settled in the States, but after 1850 many, fearing
recapture, journeyed in haste to Canada, greatly increasing
the number daily arriving there. -^ That there was no ten-
dency towards a decline in the movement is suggested by
two items appearing in the Independent during the year
1855. According to the first of these (quoted from the
Intelligencer of St. Louis, Missouri) : " The evil (of running
off slaves) has got to be an immense one, and is daily becom-
ing more aggravated. It threatens to subvert the institution
of slavery in this state entirely, and unless effectually checked
it will certainly do so. There is no doubt that ten slaves are
now stolen from Missouri to every one that was ' spirited ' off
before the Douglas bill." ^ It is significant that the ardent
abolitionists of Iowa and northwestern Illinois were vig-
1 Interview with Elder Anthony Bingey, Windsor, Ontario, July 31, 1895.
On this point Dr. S. G. Howe says : " Of course it [the Fugitive Slave Law]
gave gi-eat increase to the emigration, and free born blacks fled with the
slaves from a land in which their birthright of freedom was no longer
secure." Mefugees from Slavery in Canada West, p. 16.
2 Independent, Jan. 18, 1856.
CHARACTER OF CANADIAN REFUGEES 195
orously engaged in Underground Railroad work at this time.
The other item declared that the number of fugitives trans-
ported by the " Ohio Underground Line " was twenty-five
per cent greater than in any previous year ; " indeed, many
masters have brought their hands from the Kanawha (West
Virginia), not being willing to risk them there." ^
That portion of Canada most easily reached by fugitives
was the lake-bound region lying between New York on the
east and Michigan on- the west, and presenting a long and
inviting coast-line to northern Ohio, northwestern Pennsyl-
vania and western New York. Lower Canada was often
reached through the New England states and by way of the
coast-line routes. The fugitives slaves entering Canada
were principally from the border slave states, Missouri,
Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Some, how-
ever, favored by rare good fortune and possessed of more
than ordinary sagacity or aided by some venturesome friend,
had made their way from the far South, from the Carolinas,
Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, even from Louisiana.
The fugitives who reached Canada do not seem to have
been notable ; on the whole they were a representative body
of the slave-class. An observer on a Southern plantation
could hardly have selected out would-be fugitives, as being
superior to their fellows. If he had questioned them all
about their desire for liberty he would have found habitual
runaways agreeing with their fellows that they were content
with their present lot. The average slave was shrewd enough
under ordinary circumstances to tell what he thought least
likely to arouse suspicion. That such discretion did not
signify lack of desire for freedom is shown not only by the
numerous escapes, but by the narratives of fugitives. Said
Leonard Harrod: "Many a time my master has told me
things to try me ; among others he said he thought of mov-
ing up to Cincinnati, and asked me if I did not want to go.
I would tell him, ' No ! I don't want to go to none of your
free countries ! ' Then he'd laugh, but I did want to come
— surely I did. A colored man tells the truth here, — there
1 Independent, April 5, 1855 ; see also "Von Hoist's Constitutional and
Political History of the United States, Vol. V, p. 63, note.
196 UNDERGEOUND RAILROAD
he is afraid to." ^ " I have known slaves to be hungry," said
David West, " but when their master asked them if they had
enough, they would through fear say, 'Yes.' So if asked
if they wish to be free, they will say ' No.' I knew a case
where there was a division of between fifty and sixty slaves
among heirs, one of whom intended to set free her part. So
wishing to consult them she asked of such and such ones
if they would like to be free, and they all said 'No,' for
if they had said yes, and had then fallen to the other heirs,
they would be sold, — and so they said, ' No,' against their
own consciences." 2 "From the time I was a little boy it
always ground my feelings to know that I had to work for
another man," said Edward Walker, of Windsor, Ontario.^
When asked to help hunt two slave-women, Henry Steven-
son, a slave in Odrain County, Missouri, at first declined,
knowing that his efforts to find them would bring upon
him the wrath of the other slaves. "I wouldn't go," he
related; "the colored folks would 'a' killed me." In his
refusal he was supported by a white man, who had the
wisdom to observe that "'Twas a bad policy to send a
nigger to hunt a nigger." Nevertheless, Stevenson's trust-
worthiness had been so often tested that he was taken
along to help prosecute the search, and even accompanied
the party of pursuers to Chicago, where he disappeared by
the aid of abolitionists and was afterward heard of in Wind-
sor, Ontario.* Elder Anthony Bingey, of the same place,
said, "I never saw the day since I knew anything that I
didn't want to be free. Both Bucknel and Taylor [his
successive masters] liked to see their slaves happy and well
treated, but I always wanted to be free." ^
The manifestations of delight by fugitives when landed
on the Canada shore is another part of the evidence of the
sincerity of their aspirations for freedom. Captain Chapman,
^ Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, 1856, p. 340.
= Ibid., p. 91.
' Detroit Sunday News Tribune, quoted by the Louisville Journal, Aug.
12, 1894.
* Conversation with Henry Stevenson, Windsor, Ont., July, 1895.
* Conversation with Elder Anthony Bingey, Windsor, Ont., July 31,1895.
MISINFORMATION ABOUT CANADA AMONG SLAVES 197
the commander of a vessel on Lake Erie in 1860, was re-
quested by two 9,cquaintances at Cleveland to put ashore
on the Canada side two persons, who were, of course, fugi-
tives, and he gives the following account of the landing:
" While they were on my vessel I felt little interest in them,
and had no idea that the love of liberty as a part of man's
nature was in the least possible degree felt or understood by
them. Before entering Buffalo harbor, I ran in near the
Canada shore, manned a boat, and landed them on the beach.
. . . They said, ' Is this Canada ? ' I said, ' Yes, there are
no slaves in this country ' ; then I witnessed a scene I shall
never forget. They seemed to be transformed ; a new light
shone in their eyes, their tongues were loosed, they laughed
and cried, prayed and sang praises, fell upon the ground and
kissed it, hugged and kissed each other, crying, 'Bress de
Lord ! Oh ! I'se free before I die ! '" i
The state of ignorance in which the slave population of
the South was largely kept must be regarded as the admis-
sion by the master class that their slaves were likely to seize
the boon of freedom, unless denied the encouragement
towards self-emancipation that knowledge would surely
afford. The fables about Canada brought to the North by
runaways well illustrate both the ignorance of the slave and
the apprehensions of his owner. William Johnson, who fled
from Hopkins County, Virginia, had been told that the
Detroit River was over three thousand miles wide, and a
ship starting out in the night would find herself in the
morning "right whar she started from." In the light of
his later experience Johnson says, " We knowed jess what
dey tole us and no more." ^ Deacon Allen Sidney, an en-
gineer on his master's boat, which touched at Cincinnati, had
a poor opinion of Canada because he had heard that " nothin'
but black-eyed peas could be raised there." ^ John Evans,
who travelled through the Northern country, and even in
Canada, with his Kentucky master, was insured against the
1 E. M. Pettit, Sketches in the Sistory of the Underground Bailroad,
pp. 66, 67. See also Chapter I, p. 14, and Chapter VI, p. 178.
2 Conversation with William Johnson, at Windsor, Ont., July 31, 1895.
* Conversation with Allen Sidney, Windsor, Ont.
198 UNDERGKOUND EAILROAD
temptation to seize his liberty by the warning to let no
" British nigger" get near him lest he should be slain "jess
like on de battle-field." ^ John Reed heard the white people
in Memphis, Tennessee, talk much of Canada, but he adds
" they'd put some extract onto it to keep us from comin'." ^
Although many disparaging things said about Canada at
the South were without the shadow of verity, there were
still hardships enough to be met by those who settled there.
The provinces constituted for them a strange country. Its
climate, raw, open and variable, and at certain periods of the
year severe, increased the sufferings of a people already des-
titute. The condition in which many of them arrived be-
yond the borders, especially those who migrated before the
forties, is vividly told by J. W. Loguen in his account of his
first arrival at Hamiltqn, Canada West, in 1835. Writing to
his friend, Frederick Douglass, under date of May 8, 1856,
he says : " Twenty -one years ago — I stood on this spot,
penniless, ragged, lonely, homeless, helpless, hungry and
forlorn. . . . Hamilton was a cold wilderness for the fugi-
tive when I came there." ^ The experience of Loguen cor-
roborates what Josiah Henson said of the general condition
of the fugitives as he saw them in 1830 : " At that time they
were scattered in all directions and for the most part miser-
ably poor, subsisting not unfrequently on the roots and
herbs of the fields. ... In 1830 there were no schools
among them and no churches, only occasionally preaching." *
The whole previous experience of these pioneers was a
block to their making a vigorous initiative in their own be-
half. Extreme poverty, ignorance and subjection were their
inheritance. Their new start in life was made with a
wretched prospect, and it would be difficult to imagine a
free lot more discouraging and hopeless. Yet it was bright-
ened much by the compassionate interest of the Canadian
people, who were so tolerant as to admit them to a share in
* Conversation with John Evans, Windsor, Ont., Aug. 2, 1895.
" Conversation with John Reed, Windsor, Ont.
* The Bev. J. W. Loguen as a Slave and as a Freeman, 1859, told by
himself ; chap, xxiv, pp. 338, 340.
* Father Benson's Story of His Own Life, 1858, p. 209.
TREATMENT OF REFUGEES IN CANADA 199
the equal rights that could at that time be found in Amer-
ica only in the territory of a monarchical government. By
the year 1838 the fugitive host of Canada West began to
profit by organized efforts in its behalf. A mission of Upper
Canada was established. It was described as including " the
colored people who have emigrated from the United States
and settled in various parts of Upper Canada to enjoy the
inalienable rights of freedom." ^ During the winter of 1838-
1839, this enterprise conducted four schools, while the Rev.
Hiram Wilson, who seems to have been acting under other
auspices, was supervising during the same year a number of
other schools in the province.^
From this time on much was done in Canada to help the
ransomed slave meet his new conditions. It was not long
before the benevolent interest of friends from the Northern
states followed the refugees to their very settlements as it
had succored them on their way through the free states. In
1844 Levi Coffin and William Beard made a tour of inspec-
tion in Canada West. This was the first of several trips
made by these two Quakers " to look after the welfare of the
fugitives " ^ in that region. The Rev. Samuel J. May made
two such trips, " the first time to Toronto and its neighbor-
hood, the second time to that part of Canada which lies be-
tween Lake Erie and Lake Huron." * John Brown did not
fail to keep himself informed by personal visits how the
fugitives were faring there.® Men less prominent but not
less interested among underground magnates were di-awn to
see how their former prot^g^s were prospering ; such were
Abram AUen, a Hicksite Friend of Clinton County, Ohio,
and Reuben Goens, a South Carolinian by birth, who be-
came an enthusiastic coworker with the Quakers at Fountain
City, Indiana, in aiding slaves to the Dominion.
These efforts were helpful to multitudes of negroes. Some
insight into the work that was being accomplished is afforded
1 Mission of Upper Canada, Vol. I, No. 17, Wed., July 31, 1839.
3 Ibid.
* Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, p. 253.
♦ May, Becollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 303.
5 Hinton, John Brown and His Men, p. 175.
200 UNDEEGEOUND EAILEOAD
by Levi Coffin, who gives a valuable account of his Canadian
trip, September to November, 1844. Among the first places
he visited was Amherstburg, more commonly known at that
time by the name of Fort Maiden : " While at this place, we
made our headquarters at Isaac J. Rice's missionary buildings,
where he had a large school for colored children. He had
labored here among the colored people, mostly fugitives, for
six years. He was a devoted, self-denying worker, had
received very little pecuniary help, and had suffered many
privations. He was well situated in Ohio, as pastor of a
Presbyterian church, and had fine prospects before him, but
believed that the Lord called him to this field of missionary
labor among the fugitive slaves who came here by hundreds
and by thousands, poor, destitute, ignorant, suffering from all
the evil influences of slavery. We entered into deep sym-
pathy with him in his labors, realizing the great need there
was here for just such an institution as he had established.
He had sheltered at this missionary home many hundreds of
fugitives till other homes for them could be found. This was
the great landing-point, the principal terminus of the Under-
ground Railroad of the West." ^ Later Mr. Coffin and his
companion "visited the institution under the care of Hiram
Wilson, called the British and American Manual Labor In-
stitute for colored children." ^ " The school was then," he
reports, "in a prosperous condition." Mr. Coffin continues:
" From this place we proceeded up the river Thames to Lon-
don, visiting the different settlements of colored people on
our way, and then went to the Wilberforce Colony. . . .
I often met fugitives who had been at my house ten or fifteen
years before, so long ago that I had forgotten them, and
could recall no recollection of them until they mentioned
some circumstance that brought them to mind. Some of them
were well situated, owned good farms, and were perhaps worth
more than their former masters. . . . We found many of
the fugitives more comfortably situated than we expected, but
there was much destitution and suffering among those who
had recently come in. Many fugitives arrived weary and
footsore, with their clothing in rags, having been torn by
1 Coffin, Seminiscences, pp. 249, 250. 2 H)i^_^ p. 251.
ATTITUDE OF CANADA TOWAEDS FUGITIVES 201
briers and bitten by dogs on their way, and when the precious
boon of freedom was obtained, they found themselves pos-
sessed of little else, in a country unknown to them and a
climate much colder than that to which they were accustomed.
We noted the cases and localities of destitution, and after
our return home took measures to collect and forward several
large boxes of clothing and bedding to be distributed by re-
liable agents to the most needy." ^
The government of Canada was not in advance of the
public sentiment of the provinces when it gave the incoming
blacks considerate treatment. It was early a puzzle in Mr.
Clay's mind why Ontario and the mother country should
yield unhindered entrance to such a class of colonists; his
opinion of the character of the absconding slaves and of the
unadvisability of their being received by Canada was ex-
pressed in a despatch of 1826 to the United States minister
at London : " They are generally the most worthless of their
class, and far, therefore, from being an acquisition which the
British government can be anxious to make. The sooner, we
should think, they are gotten rid of the better for Canada." ^
But the Canadians did not at any time adopt this view. Dr.
Howe testified in 1863 that "the refugees have always re-
ceived . . . from the better class of people, good-will and
justice, and from a few, active friendship and important
assistance." ^ The attitude of the Canadian government
toward this class of immigrants was always one of welcome
and protection. Not only was there no obstruction put in
the way of their settling in the Dominion, but rather there
was the clear purpose to see them shielded from removal and
to foster among them the accumulation of property.
In the matter of the acquirement of land no discrimination
was made by the Canadian authorities against the fugitive
settlers. On the contrary these unpromising purchasers were
encouraged to take up government land and become tillers of
the soil. In 1844 Levi CofBn found that " Land had been
easily obtained and many had availed themselves of this
1 Coffin, Eeminiscences, pp. 252, 283.
2 mies' Begister, Vol. XSV, p. 289.
' Howe, Befugees in Canada West, p. 68.
202 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
advantage to secure comfortable homesteads. Government
land had been divided up into fifty-acre lots, which they
could buy for two dollars an acre, and have ten years in which
to pay for it, and if it was not paid for at the end of that
time they did not lose all the labor they had bestowed on it,
but received a clear title to the land as soon as they paid for
it." 1
In 1848 or 1849 a company was formed in Upper Canada,
under the name of the Elgin Association, for the purpose of
settling colored families upon crown or clergy reserve lands
to be purchased in the township of Raleigh. It was intended
thus to supply the families settled with stimulus to moral
improvement.^ To whom is to be attributed the origin of
this enterprise is not altogether clear ; one writer ascribes it
to the influence of Lord Elgin, Governor-General of Canada
from 1849 to 1854, and asserts that a tract of land of
eighteen thousand acres was allotted for a refugee settlement
in 1848; 3 another says it was first projected by the Rev.
William King, a Louisiana slaveholder, in 1849.* Mr. King's
own statement is that a company of fifteen slaves he had him-
self emancipated became the nucleus of the settlement in
1849; and that under an act of incorporation procured by
himself in 1850 an association was formed to purchase nine
thousand acres of land and hold it for fugitive settlers.*
The Canadian authorities facilitated the efforts made by
the friends of the fugitives to provide this class such supplies
as could be gathered in various quarters, and they entered
into an arrangement with the mission-agent, the Rev. Hiram
Wilson, to admit all supplies intended for the refugees free
of customs-duty. Mr. E. Child, a mission-teacher, educated
at Oneida Institute, New York, received many boxes of such
goods at Toronto ; ^ and at a hamlet called " the Corners," a
1 Levi CofBn, Reminiscences, pp. 252, 253.
2 Benjamin Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 292.
° George Bryce, Short History of the Canadian People, p. 403.
* Benjamin Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 291.
^ S. G. Howe, Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 107, 108..
" History of Knox County, Illinois (published by Charles C. Chapman
and Co.), p. 203. Here it is stated : " Mr. Wilson arranged with the authori-
ties to have all supplies for the fugitive slaves admitted free of customs duty.
CONDITIONS IN CANADA 203
few miles from Detroit, a Mr. Miller kept a depot for "fugi-
tive goods." Supplies were also shipped to Detroit direct for
transmission across tlie frontier. ^
The circumstances attending the settlement of the refugees
from slavery in Canada were favorable to their kindly recep-
tion by the native peoples. It was generally known that they
had suffered many hardships on their journey northward, and
that they usually came with nought but the unquenchable
yearning for a liberty denied them by the United States.
The movement to Canada had begun when the inter-lake
portion of Ontario was largely an unsettled region; and
indeed, during the period of the refugees' immigration, much
of the interior was in the process of clearing. Moreover, the
movement was one of small beginnings and gradual develop-
ment. It brought into the country what it then needed —
agricultural labor to open up government land and to help
the native farmers.
In the elbow of land lying between Lake Ontario and Lake
Erie, the fugitives were early received by the Indians under
Chief Brant, having possessions along the Grand River and
near Burlington Bay. Finding hospitality on these estates,
the negroes not infrequently adopted the customs and mode
of life of their benefactors, and remained among them.^
In the territory extending westward along the lake front
white settlers were working their clearings, which were
beginning to take on the aspect of cultivated farms. But
farm hands were not plentiful, and the fugitive slaves were
penniless, and eager to receive wages on their own account.
Many were the large ■well-filled boxes of what was most needed by the wan-
derer taken from the wharf at Toronto during that winter [1841] by E. Child,
mission-teacher. He was then a student at Oneida Institute, N.Y., but for
many years has resided in Oneida, this county. He went into Canada for
the purpose of teaching the fugitives."
' Conversation with Jacob Cummings, a fugitive from Tennessee, now
living in Columbus, O. Mr. Cummings was at one time a collecting agent
for a settlement at Puce, Ont. He told the author, " WTiile agent, I was
sent to Sandusky. I would collect goods for the settlement, and ship it to
Detroit, marked 'Fugitive Goods.' Brother Miller, at the Comers, a little
place about fifteen miles from Detroit, would take care of these, and Canada
wouldn't charge any duty on 'fugitive goods.' "
2 J. C. Hamilton, Magazine of American History, Vol. XXV, p. 238.
204 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Mr. Benjamin Drew, who made a tour of investigation among
these people in 1855, and wrote down the narratives of more
than a hundred colored refugees, gives testimony to show
that in some quarters at least, as in the vicinity of Colchester,
Dresden and Dawn, the number of laborers was not equal to
the demand, and that the negroes readily found employment.^
It was not to be expected that the field-hands and house-
servants of the South could work to the best advantage in
their new surroundings ; a gentleman of Windsor told Mr.
Drew that immigrants whose experience in agricultural pur-
suits had been gained in Pennsylvania and other free states
were more capable and reliable than those coming directly
to Canada from Southern bondage.^ But such was the dis-
position of the white people in different parts of Canada,
and such the demand for laborers in this developing section,
that the Canada Anti-Slavery Society could say of the
refugees, in its Second Report (1853) : " The true principle
is now to assume that every man, unless disabled by sickness,
can support himself and his family after he has obtained
steady employment. All that able-bodied men and women
require is a fair chance, friendly advice and a little encourage-
ment, perhaps a little assistance at first. Those who are really
willing to work can procure employment in a short time after
their arrival." ^
The fact that there were large tracts of good land in the
portion of Canada accessible to the fugitive was a fortunate
circumstance, for the desire to possess and cultivate their
own land was wide-spread among the escaped slaves. This
eagerness drew many of them into the Canadian wilderness,
there to cut out little farms for themselves, and live the life
of pioneers. The extensive tract known as the Queen's
Bush, lying southwest of Toronto and stretching away to
Lake Huron, was early penetrated by refugees. William
Jackson, one of the first colored settlers in this region, says
that he entered it in 1846, when scarcely any one was to be
found there, that other fugitive slaves soon followed in con-
1 Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, pp. 311, 368.
^ Ihid., p. 322.
' Quoted by Drew, p. 326.
REV. THEODORE PARKER,
LEADING MEMBER OF THE VIGILANCE
COMMITTEE OF BOSTON.
COL. T. W. HIGGIXSON,
ONE OF THE PRIME MOVERS IN THE
ATTEMPTED RESCUE OF BURNS.
DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE,
who made a valuable report on the life ol
fugitive settlers in Canada in behalf
of the United States Freedman's In-
qviiry Commission in 1863.
BEX.JAMIN DREW,
who studied the condition of the colored
refugees in Canada in 1855, and wrote
an interesting book on the subject.
FUGITIVE AID SOCrETIES IN CANADA 205
siderable numbers and cleared the land, and that in less than
two years as many as fifty families had located there. The
land proved to be good, was well timbered with hard wood,
and farms of from fifty to a hundred acres in extent were soon
put in cultivation.! In some other parts of Canada the same
tendency to spread into the outlying districts and secure
small holdings appeared among the colored people. Mr. Peter
Wright, the reeve of the town of Colchester, noted this fact,
and attributed the clearance of much land for cultivation to
fugitive slaves.^ That such land did not always remain in
the possession of this class of pioneers was due to their igno-
rance of the forms of conveyancing, and doubtless sometimes
to the sharp practices of unscrupulous whites.^
Encouragement was not lacking to induce refugees to take
up land ; several fugitive aid societies were organized for this
purpose, and procured tracts of land and founded colonies
upon them. The most important of the colonies thus formed
were the Dawn Settlement at Dresden, the Elgin Settlement
at Buxton and the Refugees' Home near Windsor.* These
three communities deserve special consideration, inasmuch as
they illustrate an interesting movement in which benevolent
persons in Canada, England and the United States cooperated
to improve the condition of the refugees.
The Dawn Settlement, the first of the three established,
may be said to have had its beginning in the organization of a
school called the British and A merican Institute.^ The purpose
to found such a school seems to have been cherished by the
missionary, the Rev. Hiram Wilson, and his coworker, Josiah
Henson, as early as 1838 ; but the plan was not undertaken
until 1842.^ In that year a convention of colored persons was
1 Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 190.
2 IbU., p. 367.
' Ibid., pp. 367, 369 ; Austin Steward, Twenty-two Years a Slave, and
Forty Years a Freeman, p. 272.
* Howe, Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 68, 69.
* Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 808.
« The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by Himself,
1852, p. 115. See also Father Henson's Story of His Own Life, 1858, p. 171.
Mr. Drew ascribes the honor of the original conception of this Institute to
the Rev. Hiram Wilson. (See A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 311.) Mr.
Henson, after asserting that he and Mr. Wilson called the convention of 1838,
206 UNDEKGEOTIND KAILEOAD
called to decide upon the expenditure of some fifteen hundred
dollars collected in England by a Quaker named James C.
Fuller; and they decided, under suggestion, to start "a
manual-labor school, where children could be taught those
elements of knowledge which are usually the occupations of
a grammar-school; and where the boys could be taught, in
addition, the practice of some mechanic art, and the girls
could be instructed in those domestic arts which are the
proper occupation and ornament of her sex." ^ It was decided
to locate the school at Dawn, and accordingly three hundred
acres of land were purchased there, upon which were erected
log buildings and schoolhouses, and soon the work of in-
struction was begun. It was " an object from the beginning, of
those who . . . managed the affairs of the Institute, to make
it self-supporting, by the employment of the students, for cer-
tain portions of their time, on the land." ^ The advantages
of schooling on this basis attracted many refugee settlers to
Dresden and Dawn. The Institute also gave shelter to fugi-
tive slaves " until they could be placed out upon the wild
lands in the neighborhoods to earn their own subsistence."
The Rev. Mr. Wilson served the Institute during the first
seven years of its existence, teaching its school, and minister-
ing to such refugees as came. The number of "boarding-
scholars " with which he began was fourteen, and at that time
"there were no more than fifty colored persons in all the
vicinity of the tract purchased." ^ In 1852 there were about
sixty pupils attending the school, and the settlers on the land
of the Institute had increased to five hundred ; * while other
colonies in the same region had, collectively, a population of
continues, "I urged the appropriation of the money to the establishment of a
manual-labor school. . . ." {Father Henson's Story of His Own Life,'p.\QQ.)
It appears that both Wilson and Henson were placed on the committee on
site. As they were friends and coworkers, it is safe to accord them equal
shares in the undertaking.
1 Father Hensori's Story of His Own Life, p. 169.
2 The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by Himself,
p. 115.
8 Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 311.
* First Annual Eeport of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, p. 17. See
also Drew's North-Side View, p. 311.
DAWN SETTLEMENT 207
between three thousand and four thousand colored people.^
From what has been said it is easy to see that the influence
of Dawn Institute was considerable ; its managers were not
content that it should instruct the children of colored persons
only; they extended the advantages of the school to the
children of whites and Indians as well. Adult students were
also admitted, and varied in number from fifty-six to one
hundred and sixteen. ^ The good results of the policy thus
pursued are apparent in the character and habits of the com-
munities that developed under the influence of the Institute.
Concerning these communities Mr. Drew observed : " The
colored people in the neighborhood of Dresden and Dawn
are generally prosperous farmers — of good morals. . . . But
here, as among all people, are a few persons of doubtful
character, who have not been trained ' to look out for a rainy
day,' — and when these get a little beforehand they are apt to
rest on their oars. . . . Some of the settlers are mechanics,
— shoemakers, blacksmiths and so forth. About one-third
of the adult settlers are in. possession of land which is, either
in whole or in part, paid for."^ In 1855, the year in which
these observations were made, the Institute had already
passed the zenith of its usefulness, and its buildings were
fast falling into a state of melancholy dilapidation. The
cause of this decline is probably to be found in the bad feel-
ing, neglect and failure arising out of a divided manage-
ment. *
The origin of the Elgin Settlement is discussed above;
whether or not it was projected by Lord Elgin in 1848, it is
certain that in 1849 the Rev. William King, a Presbyterian
clergyman from Louisiana, had manumitted and settled slaves
on this tract. This company, fifteen in number, formed the
nucleus of a community named Buxton, in honor of Thomas
Fowell Buxton, the philanthropist, and the rapid growth of
the settlement thus begun seems to have led to the incorpo-
ration of the Elgin Association in August, 1850. It is prob-
1 Life ofjosiah Benson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by Himself, p. 118.
" Ibid., p. 117.
' A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 309.
* Father Benson's Story of His Own Life, pp. 182-186.
208 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
able that Mr. King early became the chief agent in advancing
the interests of the settlers, his support being derived mainly
from the Mission Committee of the Presbyterian Church of
Canada. The plan that was carried out under his manage-
ment provided for the parcelling of the land into farms of fifty
acres each, to be had by the colonists at the government price,
two dollars and fifty cents per acre, payable in twelve annual
instalments. No houses inferior to the model of a small log
house prescribed by the improvement committee were to be
erected, ^ although settlers were permitted to build as much
better as they chose. A court of arbitration was established
for the adjudication of disputes, and a day-school and Sun-
day-school gave much needed instruction.
The growth of the Elgin Settlement is set forth in a series
of reports, which afford many interesting facts about the
enterprise. The number of families that entered the settle-
ment during the first two years and eight months is given as
seventy-five;^ a year later this number was increased to
one hundred and thirty families, comprising five hundred
and twenty persons ; ^ the year following there were a hun-
dred and fifty families in Buxton;* and eight years later,
in 1862, when Dr. Howe visited Canada, he was informed
by Mr. King that the population of the settlement was
"about one thousand, — men, women and children," and
that two thousand acres had been deeded in fee simple to
purchasers, one-third of which had been paid for, principal
and interest. The impressions of Dr. Howe are well worth
quoting: " Buxton is certainly a very interesting place. Six-
teen years ago it was a wilderness. Now, good highways
are laid out in all directions through the forest ; and by their
side, standing back thirty-three feet from the road, are about
two hundred cottages, all built on the same pattern, all look-
ing neat and comfortable. Around each one is a cleared
1 The dimensions of the model house were twenty-four by eighteen feet,
and twelve feet high.
^ Third Annual Beport, September, 1852, quoted by Drew in North-Side
View of Slavery, p. 293.
' Fourth Annual Beport, September, 1853. See Drew's work, p. 294.
* Fifth Annual Beport, September, 1854 ; Drew's work, p. 295.
ELGIN AND REFUGEES' HOME SETTLEMENTS 209
place, of several acres, whicli is well cultivated. The fences
are in good order, the barns seem vrell-iilled ; and cattle and
horses, and pigs and poultry, abound. There are signs of
industry and thrift and comfort everywhere ; signs of intem-
perance, of idleness, of want, nowhere. There is no tavern,
and no groggery ; but there is a chapel and a schoolhouse.
" Most interesting of all are the inhabitants. Twenty years
ago most of them were slaves, who owned nothing, not even
their children. Now they own themselves ; they own their
houses and farms ; and they have their wives and children
about them. They are enfranchised citizens of a government
which protects their rights. . . . The present condition of
aU these colonists, as compared with their former one is very
remarkable." ^ Mr. King told Dr. Howe that only three of
the whole number that settled in the colony had their first
instalment on their farms paid for them by friends ; ^ and he
summed up his experience as follows : " This settlement is a
perfect success. . . . Here are men who were bred in sla-
very, who came here and purchased land at the government
prices, cleared it, bought their own implements, built their
own houses after a model, and have supported themselves in
all material circumstances, and now support their schools,
in part. ... I consider that this settlement has done as
well as a white settlement would have done under the same
circumstances." ^
The colony known as Refugees' Home was the outgrowth
of a suggestion of Henry Bibb, who was himself a fugitive
slave. Soon after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of
1850, he proposed the formation of " a society which should
' aim to purchase thirty thousand acres of government land
... in the most suitable sections of Canada . . . for the
homeless refugees from American slavery to settle upon.' "
The association, organized in the summer of 1852, set about
carrying out Bibb's plan and accomplishing a work similar
to the objects of the Elgin Association. The money required
for the purchase of land was to be obtained partly through
contributions and partly through sales of the farms first
iHowe, Befugeesfrom Slavery in Canada West, pp. 70, 71.
' Ibid., p. 108. * Ibid., p. 110.
210 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
marketed. Each family of colonists was to have twenty-five
acres, " five of which " it was to " receive free of cost, pro-
vided " it should " within three years from the time of occu-
pancy, clear and cultivate the same." For the remaining
twenty acres the original price — two dollars an acre — was
to be paid in nine equal annual payments. Those obtaining
land from the Association, whether by purchase or gift, were
to hold it for fifteen years before having the right to dispose
of it.
In the first year of the association's existence forty lots of
twenty-five acres each were taken up, and arrangements were
made for a school and church. Mrs. Laura S. Haviland was
employed as a teacher in the fall of 1852, and at once opened
both a day-school and a Sunday-school. She also organized
an unsectarian or Christian Union Church, which later
entered the Methodist Episcopal denomination. The mate-
rial condition of the settlers Mrs. Haviland describes for us
in a few words. She says : " They had erected a frame-house
for school and meeting purposes. The settlers had built for
themselves small log houses, and cleared from one to five
acres each on their heavily timbered land, and raised corn,
potatoes and other garden vegetables. A few had put in
two and three acres of wheat, and were doing well for their
first year." ^
The three colonies described in the foregoing pages are
typical of a number of communities settled upon lands pur-
chased in Canada for their use, and regulated by rules drawn
up by the associations that had sprung into existence for the
benefit of the homeless refugees. The assumption upon
which these associations proceeded was that they were to
deal with a class of persons who, notwithstanding their
present destitution, were desirous of living worthily in the
state of freedom to which they had just attained, a class
needing direction, instruction and opportunity for self-help
rather than sustained charity. It was intended that fugitives
should not be left to work out alone their own salvation, but
that the deficiencies of ignorance and inexperience should be
mitigated for those willing to profit by the good offices of the
1 Laura S. Haviland, A Woman's Life Work, pp. 192, 196, 201.
DR. HOWE'S CRITICISM OF THE COLONIES 211
missions. The fugitive aid society did not, as we have already-
seen, try to prevent the fugitives from settling together in
the form of communities; on the contrary, such coloniza-
tion was the inevitable result of their procedure, and doubt-
less to them it seemed desirable. Such is the suggestion
contained in the arrangement under which farms were sold
to purchasers by the Elgin and Refugees' Home associations :
settlers on the tract of the former agreed to hold their farms
for at least ten years without transferring their rights;
settlers on the land of the latter were to keep their holdings
for a minimum of fifteen years without transfer. In the
dealings of the Home Association this restriction, we are
told, caused some dissatisfaction.
Whether this segregation of the colored people in localities
more or less apart from the white population of Canada was
a good thing for the refugees has been questioned. Dr. S.
G. Howe studied the life of this class in Canada in 1862 as
the representative of the United States Freedman's Inquiry
Commission, and wrote a report which is indispensable for a
knowledge of the conditions surrounding the colored settlers
in the provinces. He summarizes his judgment as follows :
" The negroes, going into an inhabited and civilized country,
should not be systematically congregated in communities.
Their natural affinities are strong enough to keep up all
desirable relations without artificial encouragement. Expe-
rience shows that they do best when scattered about, and
forming a small proportion of the whole community.
" Next, the discipline of the colonies, though it only sub-
jects the negroes to what is considered useful apprenticeship,
does prolong a dependence which amounts almost to servi-
tude ; and does not convert them so surely into hardy, self-
reliant men, as the rude struggle with actual difficulties,
which they themselves have to face and to overcome, instead
of doing so through an agent.
" Taken as a whole, the colonists have cost to somebody a
great deal of money and a great deal of effort ; and they
have not succeeded so well as many who have been thrown
entirely upon their own resources. . . .
" It is just to say that some intelligent persons, friends of
212 UNDERGKOUND EAILROAD
the colored people, believe that in none of the colonies, not
even in Buxton, do they succeed so well, upon the whole, as
those who are thrown entirely upon their own resources." ^
Upon examination, these objections do not seem to be well
grounded. It is noteworthy that of the prime movers in the
organization of the three colonies we have considered, two,
Josiah Henson and Henry Bibb, were themselves fugitive
slaves ; the third, the Rev. William King, had been at one
time a slave-owner, and the fourth, the Rev. Hiram Wilson,
was a missionary among the refugees for many years. These
men were persons of wide observation and experience among
fugitive slaves. It is safe to say that there were no men in
Canada that knew better the disadvantages under which the
average fugitive, just arrived from the South, was called upon
to begin the struggle for a livelihood. And it will be ad-
mitted that there were none in or out of Canada more zeal-
ous and self-sacrificing in promoting the refugee's interests.
These men evidently believed that the fugitive was not in a
condition to do the best for himself upon his first arrival on
free soil, that he needed to be delivered in some degree from
the weight of his ignorance, and guided in his wholesome
ambition to secure a home.
To the eyes of some Canadian observers those runaways
who had lingered a while in the Northern states before cross-
ing the border into Canada appeared to be more vigorous,
independent and successful in all undertakings than their
less experienced brethren. Whatever superiority they may
have possessed that is not assignable to natural endow-
ment, cannot safely be set down to the unchecked play upon
them of rough experiences, or to their facing and vanquishing
great discouragements unaided. The runaway slaves that
lived in the free states were not as a class left to fight their
way to attainable success alone. They settled among friends
in anti-slavery neighborhoods, whether in city or country,
and were stimulated by the practical interest manifested by
these persons in their welfare. They were thus enabled to
benefit by those educative influences that the missions of
Canada were organized to supply. It is not improbable that
1 The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 69, 70.
DR. HOWES CRITICISM ANSWERED 213
some of the refugees whose self-reliant behavior called out
the approval of Dr. Howe and others belonged to this group
of partly disciplined fugitives. Dr. Howe must have seen
many such persons, for his journey in Canada West was not
made until 1862, after the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 had
driven many of them from the states into the provinces. Drew
remarks pertinentiy : " The Fugitive Slave Bill drove into
Canada a great many who had resided in the free states.
These brought some means with them, and their efforts and
good example have improved the condition of the older
settiers." ^
The other group of Canadian refugees — those whose pas-
sage had been direct from the condition of abject dependence,
where the whole routine of life had been determined by the
master or overseer, to the condition of active independence
and responsibility, where the readiness to take hold and to
care for one's own interests were requii-ed — this group doubt-
less contained persons of ability and energy ; but they must
have been in the minority. During the later years of its
history the Underground Railroad made flight comparatively
easy for all who once got out of the slave states, so that frail
women and young children often went through to Canada
with littie or no difficulty. There were of course many
individuals of extraordinary ability, who had enjoyed in
slavery a wider range of experience than was vouchsafed
the average slave ; but such people could take care of them-
selves anywhere. Here we are concerned with the large
number that needed to have the way pointed out to them
if they were ever to become the possessors of their own
homes ; thev were not sufficientiy informed to originate and
carry on successful building and loan associations for them-
selves, but they certainly could profit by an institution de-
vised to serve the same purpose. If it be admitted that
ownership of land and all that that implies was a good thing
for the refugee, then it is difficult to see how that idea could
have been better inculcated far and wide than through the
methods employed by the Canadian organizations.
Besides enabling refugees to secxire homes for themselves
1 A Xorth-Side new of Slavery, p. 367.
214 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
there were other offices the associations conceived to be
a part of their duty, and the performance of which is set
forth in their records. The first and most urgent of these
was to supply immediate relief to the wayworn travellers
continually arriving ; with this was combined the necessity
of helping these persons to find employment. The British
and American Institute at Dawn was obliged to conduct, as
part of its workj^ghat would now be called perhaps asuggljL
apd-eraploymentbureau. Josiah Henson, one of the'Iounders
of the Institute, describing this branch of the work, says:
" Many of these poor creatures arrive destitute of means, and
often in want of suitable clothing, and these, as far as possible,
have been supplied them. Since the passage of the late
Fugitive Slave Bill, . . . they have arrived in large numbers
at the Institute, and have been drafted off among their
brethren who had been previously settled, and who are now
making every effort and sacrifice to meet their destitute
circumstances."^ Henry Bibb, of the Refugees' Home, as
early as 1843 saw the need of maintaining a stock of supplies
at Windsor out of which to relieve the immediate necessities
of fugitives.^ The missionary, Isaac J. Rice, kept a similar
supply room at Amherstburg.^ It appears from all this that
the recognition of the deplorable destitution of arriving
fugitives was general among the aid societies and their
representatives, and that prompt action was taken to meet
wants that could brook no delay.
Another service performed by these colonization societies
was that of providing superior schools for the colored people ;
education for all that could take it was one of the cardinal
features of their programme. The state of public sentiment
in some places in Canada was such that colored children
were either altogether excluded from the public schools, or,
if allowed to enter, they were annoyed beyond endurance by
the rude behavior of their fellow-pupils. In some places
they braved the prejudice against them, but the numbers
courageous enough to do this were insignificant. Under
^ The Life of Josiah Henson, as narrated by Himself, p. 117.
* Conversation with the Rev. Jacob Cummings, a refugee now living at
Columbus, O. 8 76j^_
SERVICES OE THE COLONIZATION SOdETIES 215
such circumstances the best that could be done by the friends
of the black race was to open schools under private manage-
ment. That the societies were not averse to mixed schools
is shown by the fact that white pupils were admitted in vari-
ous instances to classes formed primarily for colored children.^
This need of schools did not appeal alone to the colonization
societies. It was seen and responded to by other organiza-
tions ; thus the English Colonial Church and School Society
thought it advisable to locate schools at London,^ Amherst-
burg,^ Colchester* and perhaps other places; and certain
religious bodies of the United States felt it incumbent on
them to support school-teachers (ten or more) in different
parts of Canada.^ Besides the schools thus provided a few
were conducted by individuals; as examples of this latter
class may be named a private school at Chatham taught by
Alfred Whipper,^ a colored man, and another at Windsor
managed by Mrs. Mary E. Bibb, the wife of Henry Bibb men-
tioned above.'^
The supervision of the colonies maintained by their re-
spective associations does not appear to have been unduly
strict. Occasionally controversies came up over what was
thought by the refugees to be improper assumption of author-
ity by some agent or representative of the association, but an
examination of the terms under which land was taken by the
intending settlers brings to light only such rules as were
meant to foster intelligence, morality and sobriety among the
colonists. The aid societies were not only zealous for educa-
tion. They also provided against those evil influences to
which they thought the negroes were most likely to succumb.
Thus, for example, in the case of the Buxton ^ and Refugees'
Home settlements the manufacture and sale of intoxicants
were forbidden. Such regulations seem to have been sus-
^ First Annual Eeport of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, 1852,
Appendix, p. 22.
2 Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 148.
«i6jd.,p. 349.
* Ibid., p. 369.
' First Annual Report of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, 1852, p. 22.
• Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 236.
' Ibid., p. 322. 8 Ibid., pp. 294, 325.
216 UNDEKGEOUND RAILROAD
tained by the sentiment of the communities for which they
were made, and are not known to have been the source of
opposition. Indeed, the directors of Buxton specially com-
mended the habits of sobriety prevalent among the people
whose best interests they were striving to promote,^ and the
Rev. William King found satisfaction in the fact that a
saloon opened on the borders of that settlement could not
find customers enough to support it, and closed its doors
within a twelvemonth. His testimony relating to the stand-
ard of social purity mantained by the colonists was creditable
in its showing, and indicated a high sense of morality scarcely
to be expected among a people stained by the gross prac-
tices of slave-life.2 Of the colored people in the neighbor-
hood of Dawn Institute the reports were equally good. Mr.
Drew found them to be " generally very prosperous farmers —
of good morals, and mostly Methodists and Baptists." ^ Mr.
Henson related with evident pride that out of the three
thousand or four thousand colored people congregated in the
settlements about Dawn not one had " been sent to jail for
any infraction of the laws during the last seven years
(1845-1852)."*
The widest range of dissatisfaction appeared at the Refu-
gees' Home, where the fugitives are reputed to have been
unduly burdened. Thomas Jones, not a colonist, and with-
out any personal grievances to complain of, voiced the feel-
ing to Mr. Drew. After relating some annoying changes
made in the regulations as to the time in which clearings
were to be made, as to the size of the houses to be erected
and so forth, he declared that the settlers "doubt about
getting deeds, . . . The restrictions in regard to liquor, and
not selling [their land] under so many years, nor the power
to will . . . property to . . . friends, only to children if . . .
[they] have any, make them dissatisfied. They want to do
as they please." From this it appears that the population of
' Third Annual Report (1852), quoted by Drew, p. 293.
2 Howe, Mefugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 109, 110.
' Drew, A Norlh-Side View of Slavery, p. 309.
* The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by Simself,
p. 118.
COJrCLUSIONS CONCERNING THE COLONIES 217
Refugees' Home was not altogether content with the local
government under which it liyed, but apparently the com-
plaints made were to be attributed more to the unjust
changes in the charter of the colony than to the moral regime
the Home Association sought to enforce.
In general we may say, then, that in so far as the three
colonies considered were typical of the whole class, there was
nothing inherent in the provisions of their constitutions or
in the nature of their organizations to place their members in
a kind of servitude. As property owners, these citizens be-
came subject to legitimate obligations, which might have been
differently arranged, but could scarcely have been less oner-
ous or of better intention. The requirement that ownership
should be for a period of ten or fifteen years, made by the
Elgin and Refugees' Home societies, was perhaps annoying;
but the explanation, if not the full justification, of such a de-
mand lay in the evident desire of the societies to give all
purchasers ample time in which to make their payments,
and in the irresponsibility of the class with which they were
dealing.
It is impossible to tell how many landed colonies there
were in Canada. Dr. Howe, perhaps the best contemporary
observer, speaks indefinitely of benevolent persons that formed
organizations at various periods for the relief and aid of the
refugees, and says that these organizations generally took the
form of societies for procuring tracts of land and settling
colonies upon them, but he gives no further details.^ What-
ever their number, it is quite certain that these colonies com-
prised but a small part of the refugee population. The
natural tendency was for fugitives to drift at once to the
towns, where there was immediate prospect of relief and
employment. In this way many of the Canadian centres
came to have an increasing proportion of colored inhabitants.
The towns first receiving such additions were naturally those
of mercantile importance in the lake traffic of the decades
before the Civil War. Thus, Amherstburg and Windsor,
Port Stanley and Port Burwell, St. Catherines, Hamilton and
1 Howe, Befugees from Slaver;/ in Canada West, p. 69.
218 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Toronto, and Kingston and Montreal, early became important
places of resort for escaped slaves.
The movement vi^as normally from these and other centres
on the lake shore, or near it, to the interior. How rapid it
was we can only judge by the few chance indications that
remain. During Drew's travels in Canada West he learned
that in 1832 the town of Chatham was a mere hamlet com-
prising a few houses and two or three shops, although the
oldest deed of the place on record is dated 1801. Steamboats
did not begin to ply on the river Sydenham between Chatham
and Detroit until 1837. But long before this year, and, in
fact, at the first settlement of the town, colored people began
to come in.^ When Levi Coffin made his first trip to Canada,
in 1844, he visited a number of settlements of colored people
scattered along the river Thames north of Dawn, and found
the colony at Wilberforce already established.^ This colony
had been founded as early as 1830, and because it was
originally settled by a group of emancipated slaves, it soon
began to attract new settlers from the incoming stream of
runaways. By 1846 the more distant interior was invaded.
In that year the long strip of country stretching from the
western extremity of Lake Ontario across to Lake Huron,
and designated on the general map as Queen's Bush, was
entered by pioneers who had escaped from slavery. This
region was not surveyed until about 1848, and by that time
there were as many as fifty families located there.' Some
time during the years 1845 to 1847, the Rev. R. S. W. Sorrick
went as far north as Oro, where he found " some fifty persons
settled, many comfortable and doing well, but many [suffer-
ing] a great deal from poverty." * The surveying of the tract
called Queen's Bush, and the subsequent arranging of the
terms of payment for land already occupied, caused a number
of colored settlers to sell their clearings in " the Bush " and
move away. Some of these, it appears, went south to Buxton,
but some went north to the shores of Georgian Bay and
1 A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 235.
" Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, p. 521.
' Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 189.
* Ibid., p. 190.
REFUGEES IN THE EASTERN PROVINCES 219
located at Owen Sound.^ From this testimony it is certain
that by 1850 fugitive slaves had found their way in consider-
able numbers throughout the inter-lake portion of Canada
West.
Farther east, the Province of Quebec attracted negroes
from the Southern states as early as the thirties ; and they
began to make pilgrimages northward by way of secret lines
of travel through New England. By 1850, there were at least
five or six of these lines, all well patronized, considering their
remoteness from slaveholding territory. Maritime routes, by
way of ports along the New England coast to New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, and even Cape Breton Island, seem also to have
existed. A case is cited by the Rev. Austin Willey in his
book, entitled Ayiti-Slavery in the State and Nation, in which
more than twenty colored refugees were sent from Portland
to New Brunswick at one time, soon after the rescue of
Shadrach in Boston, in 1851. It is reported that there are
still settlements of ex-slaves in Nova Scotia, near Halifax ;2
and the statement has recently been made that " there are at
least two negro families living in Inverness County, Cape
Breton, who are, in all probability, the descendants of fugitive
slaves." 2
As regards this movement into the Eastern provinces, no
detailed information can be had. Even in the Western lake-
bound region, it was the towns that were the most accessible
for the traveller desirous of studying the condition of fugi-
tives; most visitors contented themselves with the briefest
memorials of their visits ; and those whose accounts are at
the same time helpful and extended, describe or even men-
tion only a limited number of abiding-places of escaped slaves.
Though Drew notices in his book but thirteen communities,
and Dr. Howe refers to eleven only, numerous other places
are mentioned by other observers. Sketching his first visit
to Canada, Mr. Coffin writes : " Leaving Gosfield County,
1 Drew, North-Side View of Slavery, p. 190.
2 A statement to this effect, which appeared in the Marine Journal of
New York, is quoted in McClure's Magazine for May, 1897, p. 618.
• See the letter signed "D. F.," printed in McClure's Magazine, May,
1897, p. 618.
220 TJNDBKGROUKD RAILROAD
we made our way to Chatham and Sydenham, visiting the
various neighborhoods of colored people. We spent several
days at the settlement near Down's Mills, and visited the
institution under the care of Hiram Wilson, called the British
and American Manual Labor Institute. . . . From this place
we proceeded up the river Thames to London, visiting the
different settlements of colored people on our way, and then
went to the Wilberforce colony." ^ After naming a list of
twelve towns near which refugees had settled, Josiah Henson
says: "Others are scattered in small numbers in different
townships, and at Toronto there are about four hundred or
five hundred variously employed. . . ." ^ Such testimony
goes to show that the refugee population of Canada was
widely distributed, both in the cities and towns and in the
country.
If the information at hand in regard to the distribution
of the refugees is unsatisfactory, it can hardly be expected
that the numbers can now be ascertained. The official fig-
ures of the successive Canadian censuses are untrustworthy.
Dr. Howe, who studied them, concluded that, " It is impossi-
ble to ascertain the number of exiles who have found refuge
in Canada since 1800. ... It is difficult, moreover, to
ascertain the present number (1862). The census of 1850
is confused. It puts the number in Upper Canada at 2,502
males and 2,167 females. But in a note it is stated, ' there
are about 8,000 colored persons in Western Canada.' This
word " about " is an admission of the uncertainty ; and as if
to make that uncertainty greater, the same census in another
part puts the number in Western Canada at 4,669." The
census of 1860 Dr. Howe found to be equally unreliable.
In giving the colored population as 11,223, it underrated
the number greatly, as he discovered by looking into the
records of several cities and by making inquiry of town offi-
cers. In this manner he learned that the number of colored
people living in St. Catherines was about 700, although the
census showed only 472 ; in Hamilton, probably more than
1 lieminiscences of Levi Coffin, p. 251. The italics are my own.
" The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by Himself,
p. 100.
EEFTTGEE POPULATION OF CANADA 221
500, despite the government showing of only 62 ; in Toronto,
934, although the census gave but 510 ; in London, Canada
West, as the mayor estimated, there were 75 families of col-
ored people, whereas the, census showed only 36 persons.
"There has been no movement of the colored population,"
Dr. Howe tells us, " sufficient to explain such discrepancies ;
and the conclusion is that the census of 1850, and that of
1860, included some of the colored people in the white
column. " ^
If the information contained in the census reports of
the Canadas relating to the refugee population of the
provinces is misleading, so. also is it true that little value
can be attached to the estimates made at various times
by visitors to the communities of fugitives, most of whom
had inadequate data upon which to base their con-
clusions. These estimates ■ not only differ widely, but
sometimes leave room for doubt as to what geographical
area and period of time they are intended to cover.
Coffin in 1844 was told that there were about forty thou-
sand fugitives in Canada; 2 but eight years later Henson
estimated the number at between twenty thousand and
thirty thousand, and daily increasing.^ In the same year
(1852) the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada in its First
Annual Report stated that there were about thirty thousand
colored residents in Canada West.* The Rev. Hiram Wil-
son said from the lecture platform that there were sixty
thousand fugitives in Canada, and Elder Anthony Bingey, a
coworker with Mr. Wilson, who heard this estimate given
by his friend, informed the writer that ^Ir. Wilson had trav-
elled over the country from Toronto westward and was as
competent a judge as could be found in Ontario.^ John
Brown attended a conference at Chatham in the spring of
1858, and his biographer, Mr. R. J. Hiaton, thinks there
were probably not less than seventy-five thousand fugitives
1 Howe, The Befugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 15, 16.
* Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, p. 253.
» Tke Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by Himself,
Appendix, p. 99.
* Quoted by Howe in T?ie Befugees from Slavery in Canada West, p. 17.
5 Conversation with Mr. Bingey, Windsor, Ont., July 31, 1895.
222 UNDERGEOUND RAILEOAD
living in Canada West at that time.i The Rev. W. M.
Mitchell, a negro missionary writing in 1860, was of the
opinion that there were sixty thousand colored people in
Upper Canada, that fifteen thousand of these were free-born,
and that the remaining forty-five thousand were fugitive
slaves from the United States. 2 The Rev. Dr. Willes, Pro-
fessor of Divinity in Toronto College, is quoted as having
said that there were about sixty thousand emancipated slaves
in Canada, the most of whom had escaped from bondage.^
Dr. Howe came to the conclusion in 1863 that the whole
number of slaves enfranchised by residence in the provinces
was between thirty and forty thousand. He thought that
at the time of his visit the population did not fall below fif-
teen thousand nor exceed twenty thousand ; although other
observers, he said, estimated it as ranging from twenty
thousand to thirty thousand.*
Besides the diversity of the figures here presented, it
should be noted that most of the estimates refer only to
Canada West ; and further that they take no account of the
losses under a high death-rate, due to the action of the new
climatic conditions upon the settlers. Travellers were not
in possession of the elements necessary for a computation,
the resident missions were tempted to overstate, and the
Canadian officials did not know how to secure data, and, per-
haps, did not try to secure them fully. One can only say that
the numerous lines of Underground Railroad would not have
been taxed beyond their capacity to convey a number of
refugees equal to the highest estimate given above during
the period these lines are known to have been active.
The great majority of escaped slaves were possessed of
but little more than the boon of freedom when they arrived
in what was for them "the promised land." Church mis-
sions, anti-slavery societies and colonies found in them worthy
subjects for their benefactions, which were intended to put
the recipients in the way of earning their own livelihood.
^ John Brown and His Men, p. 171.
" The Underground Railroad, p. 127.
'^ Ibid., p. 166.
* The Befugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 15, 17.
OCCUPATIONS OF CANADIAN EEFUGEES 223
The need of clothing, shelter and employment was provided
for as promptly as circumstances would allow, and the fugi-
tives soon came to realize that the efforts made in their behalf
were to help them attain that independence of which they
had been so long deprived.
As the region to which the refugees had recourse in largest
numbers was well covered with forests, and was beginning
to be cleared for tillage, a common occupation among them
was that of the woodsman. Many were able to hire them-
selves to the native farmers to cut timber, while many
others, who arranged to lease or buy land, went to work
to clear garden patches and little farms for themselves.
Josiah Henson sought to develop a lumber industry in the
neighborhood of Dawn by setting up a sawmill on the farm
of the British and American Institute, and shipping its
products to Boston and New York.^ Such work, in a climate
to which they were unaccustomed, was an experience beyond
the strength of some of the fugitives; and their exposure
to the cold of the Canadian winter sowed the seeds of con-
sumption in many. 2
Farming appears to have been the occupation naturally
preferred by the refugees, and probably the majority of them
looked forward to owning farms. ^ It was the pursuit their
masters followed, and for which they themselves were best
adapted. The way to it was open through the demand for
farm-hands on the part of many white settlers, and the
special encouragement frequently needed was supplied by
the example and aid of one or another of the colonies.
It is not surprising that a considerable number of the
fugitives contented themselves with the present enjoyment
of their newly acquired liberty, and neglected to make pro-
vision for the future. Such persons were quite ready to
work, but were slow to understand how they could acquire
land in time, and secure the full profits of their labor to
themselves. The weight of enforced ignorance, dependence
and poverty was upon them. Not infrequently they entered
1 Father Benson's Story of Mis Own Life, p. 173 et seq.
" This is substantiated by tbie testimony of various Canadian refugees.
> First Annual Report of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, p. 15.
224 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
into profitless bargains, leasing wild lands on short terms,
and finding themselves dispossessed when their clearings
were about ready for advantageous cultivation.^ Their
knowledge of agriculture was scanty, and their planting,
in consequence, often injudicious. They were, however,
zealous to learn. The Rev. R. S. W. Sorrick, who gave
some instruction to the settlers at Oro in the art of farm-
ing, declared them to be a most teachable people. ^ The
refugees at Colchester appear to have been equally open-
minded to the practical suggestions given them in a series
of lectures on "crops, wages and profit" delivered before
them by Mr. Henson.
It is well known that among the slave-owners of the bor-
der states the practice existed widely of entrusting some
of their negroes with the responsibilities of farm manage-
ment ; and that in the same portion of the South slaves were
often permitted to hire their own time for farm labor ; thou-
sands of runaways also had gathered experience in the free
states before their emigration to Canada; hence one is pre-
pared in a measure to understand the rapid strides made by
a large class of the negro population in the country of their
adoption. Many of these people already had a gauge of their
ability, and were not afraid to go forward in the acquirement
of lands and homes of their own. To the advancement made
by this numerous class is due the favorable comment called
forth from observing persons, both Canadians and visiting
Americans. Dr. Howe has left us some interesting informa-
tion concerning the condition of refugee farmers in Canada.
He found some cultivating small gardens of their own near
large towns, where they had a ready market for the produce
they raised ; others, more widely scattered, tilled little farms,
which for the most part were clear of encumbrance ; these
farms were " inferior to the first-class farms of their region
in point of cultivation, fences, stock and the like," but were
" equal to the average of second-class farms " ; their owners
lacked the capital, intelligence and skill of the best farmers,
1 Father Hensori's Story of His Own Life, pp. 165, 166 ; Drew, A North-
Side View of Slavery, pp. 196, 369.
' Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 120.
CONGREGATION OF FUGITIVES IN TOWNS 225
but, far from being lazy, stupid or thriftless, supported them-
selves in a fair degree of comfort, and occupied houses not
easily distinguishable in appearance from the farmhouses of
their white neighbors. The miserable hut of the worthless
negro squatter was occasionally to be seen, but usually the
rude cabin and small clearing marked the spot where a newly
arrived fugitive had begun his home, which in due course
was to pass through successive stages until it should become
a well-cleared farm, with good buildings and a large stock of
animals and tools.*
A fact deplored by some friends of the refugees was the
iuclination to congregate in towns and cities.^ A committee
of investigation appointed by the Anti-Slavery Society of
Canada reported in 1852 that, although many fugitives were
scattered through the various districts, the larger number
was massing in certain localities, those named being Elgin,
Dawn and Colchester village settlements, Sandwich, Queen's
Bush, Wilberforce, Hamilton and St. Catherines, together
with the Niagara district and Toronto.^ According to
Josiah Henson the towns about which these people were
gathering were Chatham, RUey, Sandwich, Anderton (prob-
ably Anderson), IMalden, Colchester, Gonfield (doubtless
Gosfield), London, Hamilton and the colonies at Dawn and
Wilberforce.* Other centres undoubtedly existed, though
no exhaustive list of such places could be made from the
meagre accounts left us.
The movement to the towns was natural, for friends and
employment were more easily to be found there than else-
where. Certain parts or quarters of the towns rapidly
filled up with the negroes, and the bonds of race and sym-
pathy came into full play, causing constant accretions of
new settlers. This was especially true of Fort Maiden or
Amherstburg, for years the principal port of entry for fugi-
tives landing from the Michigan and Ohio borders. The
^ The Befugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 65, 66. See also Drew,
A Xorth-Side View of Slavery, p. 368.
2 Mitchell, The Underground Railroad, p. 128.
» First Annual Beport of the Society, pp. 16, 17.
* The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by Himself,
p. 100.
226 XINDERGEOUND RAILROAD
result in this and similar cases was unsatisfactory ; the peo-
ple seemed not to do as well as in other places.^ In Hamil-
ton and Toronto, we are told, the dwellings of the blacks
were scattered among those of the whites, instead of being
crowded together in a single suburban locality more or less
distinct from the city of which it formed a part.^ However,
local conditions existing in Toronto, such as rent charges,
tended to confine the colored people to the northwest sec-
tion of the city.2
A wide range of occupations was open to the refugees in
the towns ; besides the lighter kinds of service about hotels
and other public houses, and the work of plastering and
whitewashing, often performed by negroes, various trades
were followed, such as blacksmithing, carpentering, build-
ing, painting, mill-work and other handicrafts. There were
good negro mechanics in Hamilton, Chatham, Windsor, Am-
herstburg and other places. A few were engaged in shop-
keeping, or were employed as clerks, while a still smaller
number devoted themselves to teaching and preaching.
As a class the fugitives in the towns, as in the country,
were accounted steady and industrious, and their dwellings
were said to be " generally superior to those of the Irish, or
other foreign emigrants of the laboring class," and "far
superior to the negro huts upon slave plantations, which
many of them formerly inhabited."* Dr. J. Wilson Moore,
of Philadelphia, visited the refugee communities in vari-
ous Canadian towns, for example at Chatham, London and
Wilberforce, and was favorably impressed with what he saw ;
with the orderly deportment of the crowds of colored peo-
1 Dr. Howe quotes the following statement from Mr. Brush, town clerk of
Maiden : "A portion of them (the colored people) are pretty well behaved,
and another portion not. ... A great many of these colored people go and
sail (are sailors) in the summer-time, and in the winter lie around, and don't
do much. . . We have to help a great many of them, more than any other
class of people we have here. I have been clerk of the council for three
years, and have had the opportunity of knowing. I think the council have
given more to the colored people than to any others." See also A North-
Side View of Slavery, p. 58.
" A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 62.
^ Ibid., p. 94.
* Howe, The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, p. 63.
PROGRESS or CANADIAN REFUGEES 227
pie at Chatham while returning from a celebration of the
anniversary of the West Indian emancipation, with the air
of neatness and comfort displayed by the homes of the
fugitives at London, with the advance from log cabins to
brick and frame-houses made by the settlers at WUberf orce.^
The weight of evidence supplied by Mr. Drew was unques-
tionably favorable to the view that the refugees were making
substantial progress. He found the condition of the colored
people in Toronto such as to be a proper cause of satisfac-
tion for the philanthropist ; many men in Hamilton were
well-to-do ; concerning those living in London he learned
that some were highly intelligent and respectable, but that
others wasted their time and neglected their opportunities ;
he noted that there was great activity among the negroes
at Chatham, where they engaged in a large variety of man-
ual pursuits ; at Windsor, almost all the members of this
class had comfortable homes, and some owned neat and
handsome houses ; at Sandwich a few were house-owners,
the rest were tenants ; in Amherstburg the assurance was
given that the colored people of Canada were doing better
than the free negroes in the United States ; the settlers at
New Canaan were reported to be making extraordinary
progress, considering the length of time they had lived
there ; and out of a colored population of seventy-eight at
Gosfield all of the heads of families, with two or three
exceptions, were freeholders.^ Dr. Howe, who visited the
houses of the colored people in the outskirts of Chatham
and other large places, described them as being for the most
part small and tidy two-story houses with garden lots about
them, neatly furnished, the tables decently spread and plenti-
fully supplied. He was convinced that the fugitive slaves
lived better than foreign immigrants in the same region,
and clothed their children better.^
The relation of the slave to his wife and children was a
1 Still, Underground Bailroad Records, p. xvii.
* A North-Side View of Slavery, pp. 94, 119, 147, 234, 321, 344, 348, 376,
378.
* The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 63, 64. See also
Mitchell's Underground Bailroad, pp. 130, 131, 133, 135, 137-139, 142-144,
146, 148 et seq.
228 TJNDERGKOTJND RAILROAD
precarious one in the South, especially in the border region
from which most of the Canadian exiles came. Slave-breed-
ing for the Southern market was extensively carried on in
Virginia, Kentucky and other border states ; slave-traders
made frequent trips through this section ; and their coming
brought consternation, distress and separation to many a
slave-family. These and other violations of the domestic
ties might be expected to react on the home life of the slave-
family, tending to discourage regard for the forms of family
life, and to take away incentive to constancy. In view of
such degradation it is surprising to note the care taken by
many refugees for the formal legitimation of the alliances
made by them in slavery. Once secure in their freedom
and in their domestic relations, they began to substitute for
the marriage after " slave fashion " the legal form of marriage,
which they saw observed about them in Canada. Dr. Howe
noticed that the fugitives settled themselves in families,
respected the sanctity of marriage, and showed a general
improvement in morals.^
This recognition of a new standard of social virtue sig-
nifies a great gain on the part of the refugees. As the with-
holding of any real instruction from the slaves in the South
helped to brutalize them, so their moral elevation in Canada
went hand in hand with their enlightenment through schools
and religious teaching. What advantages were afforded
them in the way of education in their new abiding-place,
and what measure of benefit did they derive from these
opportunities ?
It appears that under the Canadian law colored people
were permitted either to send their children to the common
schools or to have separate schools provided from their pro-
portionate share of the school funds. In some districts,
however, local conditions stood in the way of the education
of colored children. Many of the parents did not appreciate
the need of sending their children to school regularly ; it
often happened that they were too destitute to take advan-
1 The Hefugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 95, 101, Appendix,
pp. 109, 110. In her book, A Woman's Life Work, p. 193, Mrs. Laura S.
Haviland reports some interesting cases of this sort.
SCHOOLS OF THE REFUGEES 229
tage of these opportunities ; again, they were unaccustomed
to the enjoyment of equal priyileges with the whites and were
timid about assuming them. The children, unused to the
climate of the new country, perhaps also thinly clad, were
sickly and often unable to go to school.^
Prejudice was also not wanting in some quarters among
the whites. In the town of Sandwich, on the Detroit River,
in 1851 or 1852, the feelings of the two people were much
agitated over the question of mixed schools.^ The towns
of Chatham, London and Hamilton appear also to have been
more or less affected by prejudice against the negro. ^ Partly
owing to this prejudice, and partly to their own preference,
the colored people, acting under the provision of the law
that allowed them to have separate schools, set up their own
schools in Sandwich and in many other parts of Ontario.*
Drew incidentally noted the existence of separate schools at
Colchester, Amherstburg, Sandwich, Dawn and Buxton ; the
existence of private schools at London, Windsor and perhaps
one or two other places ; and the presence of an extremely
small number of colored children in the common schools at
Hamilton and London. Concerning Toronto, he tells us that
no distinction existed there in regard to school privileges.
Such figures as Drew supplies show the separate, private and
mission schools to have been more numerously attended than
the public or common schools. The former furnished the
conditions under which whatever appreciation of education
there was native in a community of negroes, or whatever taste
for it could be awakened there, was free to assert itself unhin-
dered by real or imagined opposition. That the refugees
were capable of a genuine interest in the schools provided
for them, even under the most disheartening circumstances,
appears from the fact that " many of the colored settlers were
attracted to Dresden and Dawn by the preferred advantages
of education on the industrial plan in the Dawn Institute."*
Adults and children both attended ; the schools of the
mission-workers were intended to reach as many as possible
1 Mitchell, The Underground Bailroad, pp. 140, 164, 165.
» Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, pp. 341, 342.
» Ibid., pp. 118, 147, 235. ♦ Ibid., p. 341. « n^ia., p. 308.
230 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
of a constituency made up largely of grown persons. An
evening school for adults was established in Toronto, and
had a good attendance. ^ Sunday-schools were an important
accessory, furnishing, as they did, opportunities to many
whose week days were full of other cares. Mrs. Haviland's
experience was probably that of mission-teachers in other
parts of Canada. On Sundays her schoolhouse was filled
to overflowing, many of her congregation coming five or six
miles to get to the meeting. The Bible was read with eager-
ness by those whose ignorance required prompting at every
word. The oppression of past years was forgotten, for the
hour, in the pleasure of learning to read the Word of God.
An aged couple, past eighty, were among the most regular
attendants.^ The spread of the earnest desire for knowledge
shown in these meetings would suffice to explain an observa-
tion made by Dr. Howe in 1863 to the effect that a surpris-
ingly large number could then read and write. ^
An agency illustrative of the refugees' desire for self-im-
provement was the association made up of local societies
called " True Bands." The first of these clubs was organized
at Amherstburg or Maiden in September, 1854, and in less
than two years there were fourteen such societies in various
parts of Canada West. The total membership of the associa-
tion is not known, but the True Band of Maiden comprised
six hundred persons, and that of Chatham, on the first en-
rolment, three hundred and seventy-five. Persons of both
sexes were admitted to membership, and a small monthly
payment was required. The objects of the association were
comprehensive ; they included the improvement of the
schools, the increase of the school attendance among the
colored people, the abatement of race prejudice, the arbitra-
tion of disputes between colored persons, the employment of
a fund for aiding destitute persons just arriving from slavery,
the suppression of begging in behalf of refugees by self-ap-
pointed agents, and so forth. The True Band at Maiden did
much good work ; and in all other places where the societies
1 First Annual Meport of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, p. 16.
2 A Woman's Life Work, pp. 192, 193.
5 The Befugees from Slavery in Canada West, p. 77.
TRUE BANDS AMONG THE REFUGEES 231
were formed it is reported that excellent results were secured.
These clubs demonstrated their ability by concerted action
to care for numerous strangers as they arrived in Canada
after their long pilgrimage.^
Another object of the True Band association was to pre-
vent divisions in the church, and as far as possible to heal
those that had already occurred. This provision was appar-
ently intended to serve as a check on the disposition of the
refugees to multiply churches. " Whenever there are a few
families gathered together," wrote one observer, " they split
up into various sects and each sect must have a meeting-house
of its own. . . . Their ministers have canvassed the United
States and England, contribution-box in hand ; and by ap-
pealing to sectarian zeal, got the means of building up taber-
nacles of brick and wood, trusting to their own zeal for
gathering a congregation. . . ."^ This eagerness to build
churches has been criticised as consuming much of the time
and substance of the exiles, and causing division where union
was desirable. But if this side of the religious life and activ-
ities of the refugees calls for condemnation, another side,
which was fostered by the new conditions, was the more
marked manifestation of the religious nature of the blacks in
what has been well called in contrast with their emotionalism
the higher forms of conscience, morality and good works. ^
The minds of many of the Canadian exiles were ever going
back to the friends and loved ones they had left behind them
on the plantations of the South. Each new band of pilgrims
as it came ashore at some Canadian port was scanned by little
groups of negroes eagerly looking for familiar faces. Strange
and solemn reunions after years of separation and of hardship
took place along the friendly shores of Canada. But the
fugitive that was safe in the promised land was anxious to
assist fortune, and as soon as he had learned to write or could
find an acquaintance to write for him, was likely to send a
letter to some trusted agent of the Underground Railroad
for advice or assistance in an attempt to release some slave
1 Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, pp. 236, 237.
2 Howe, The Refugees from Slavery in, Canada West, p. 92.
» Ibid.
232 tTNDEEGROUND RAILROAD
or family of slaves from their thraldom. Many, we know,
took a more dangerous method than this, and went personally
to seek their relatives in the South, and piloted them safely
back to English soil ; but the appeal to anti-slavery friends
in the States, while probably less effective, sometimes secured
the desired results. "William Still, the chairman of the Act-
ing Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia, — a position that
brought him in contact with hundreds of escaped slaves as
they were being sent beyond our northern frontier, — was
the recipient of numerous letters entreating his aid for the
deliverance of the kinsmen of refugees.^
Fugitive slaves were admitted to citizenship in the prov-
inces on the same terms as other immigrants. Many of them
became property owners in the course of time, paid their
allotted share of the taxes, and thus gained the franchise ;
Dr. Howe examined the records of several towns in 1862
and made comparisons of the amount of taxable property
owned by whites and blacks. According to his state-
ment the proportion of white rate or tax payers to the
white population of Maiden was in the ratio of one to
three and one-third ; that of the colored ratepayers of
the town to the colored population, one to eleven. The
average amount paid by the whites was 19.52, while that
paid by the blacks was f5.12. In Chatham the white rate-
payers were " about one to every three and one-half of
the white population, and the colored about one to every
thirteen of the colored population." The average tax paid
by white and black was $10.63 and $4.98 respectively. At
Windsor it appears that the proportion of ratepayers among
the whites was as one to seven and one-fourth, and among
the blacks it was as one to five. Here the per capita average
was 118.76 for the former, and $4.18 for the latter.^ These
towns, it is to be noted, were not colonies ; and in them the
fugitives were offered no peculiar inducements to become
the owners of property. All things considered, the showing
is highly creditable for the negroes.
1 Still, Underground Bailroad Records, 2d ed., pp. 59, 65, 105, 137, 193,
249, 263, 291, 293, 337, 385, 448, 490.
* The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 61, 62.
POLITICAL PRIVILEGES OF REFUGEES 233
The fact that they had been slaves did not debar the ref-
ugees from the exercise of whatever political rights they
had acquired. The negro voters used their privilege freely
in common with the native citizens, allying themselves with
the two regular parties of Canada, the Conservative and the
Reform.^ In some communities negroes were elected to
office. The Rev. WiUiam King, head of the Buxton Set-
tlement, has mentioned the offices of pathmasters, school
trustees, and councillors as those to which colored men were
chosen within his knowledge. These, he said, were as high
as the negro had then attained, and he thought that white
men would refuse to vote for a black running for Par-
Uament.2 Dr. J. Wilson Moore, a friend of the refugees,
said of them in 1858 that their standing was fair, and that
the laws of the land made no distinction. He observed that
they did jury duty with their white neighbors, and served as
school directors and road commissioners. On the whole, he
thought, they were as much respected as their intelligence
and virtue entitled them to be.^
In view of the remarkable progress made by the refugees
and of their general serviceableness as settlers in the prov-
inces, it is easy to understand why the Canadian govern-
ment maintained its favorable attitude towards them to the
end of the long period of immigration. In 1859 the Governor-
General testified to the favorable opinion the central govern-
ment entertained of the fugitives as settlers and citizens by
assuring the Rev. W. M. Mitchell that " We can stUl afford
them homes in our dominions " ; and the Parliament of On-
tario manifested its interest in their continued welfare by
voting to incorporate the Association for the Education and
Elevation of the Colored People of Canada upon the showing
that the association would thereby be enabled to extend its
philanthropic labors among the blacks.* The Canadian
authorities seem to have become established in the view
reached after a candid and prolonged investigation by Dr.
1 Still, Underground Bailroad Mecords, p. xxvii.
' Howe, Hie Befugees from, Slavery in Canada West, Appendix, p. 108.
• Still, Underground Bailroad Becords, p. xvii. ,
* Mitchell, The Underground Bailroad, pp. 155, 156. '
/
234 UNDERGROUiro RAILROAD
Howe, that the refugees "promote the industrial and
material interests of the country and are valuable citi-
zens."^
1 The Sefugees from Slavery in Canada West, p. 102. William Still, who
made a trip through Canada West in 1855, expressed a view similar to that
above quoted, and added the words: "To say that there are not those
amongst the colored people in Canada, as every place, who are very poor,
. . . who will commit crime, who indulge in habits of indolence and intem-
perance, . . . would be far from the truth. Nevertheless, may not the same
be said of white people, even where they have had the best chances in every
particular 1 " Underground Railroad Becords, p. xxviii.
CUlKCtl t*t THE FIOITITB 81. AYKS IHBUSTOS
This church once stood near the house of Lewis Hayden, (i6 Phillips Street,
Boston, Massachusetts.
(From an old engraving.)
CHAPTER VIII
FUGITIVB SETTLBES IN THE NOKTHERK STATES
There were many fugitives from bondage that did not
avaU themselves of the protection afforded by the proximity
of Canadian soil. For various reasons these persons remained
within the borders of the free states ; some were drawn by
the af&nities of race to seek permanent homes in communities
of colored people ; some, keeping the stories of their past
lives hidden, found employment as well as oblivion among
the crowds in cities and towns ; some, choosing localities
more or less remote from large centres of population, settled
where the presence of Quakers, Wesleyan Methodists, Cove-
nanters or Free Presbyterians gave them the assurance of
safety and assistance ; and some, after a severe experience of
pioneer life in the woods of Canada, preferred to run their
chances on the southern shores of the lakes, where it was
easier to gain a livelihood, and whence escape could be made
across the line at the first intimation of danger.
As one would suppose, it is impossible to determine with
any accuracy how many fugitive settlers there were in the
North at any particular time. Estimates both local and
general in character have come down to us, and, naturally
enough, one is inclined to attach greater value to the former
than to the latter, on the score of probable correctness, but
here the investigator is met by the extreme paucity of ex-
amples, which, as it happens, are confined to two towns in
eastern Massachusetts, namely, Boston and New Bedford.
In October, 1850, the Rev. Theodore Parker stated publicly
that there were in Boston from four hundred to six hun-
dred fugitives.^ Concerning the refugee population of New
Bedford our information is much less definite, for it is
1 Chronotype, Oct. 7, 1850.
235
236 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
reported that in that place there were between six hundred
and seven hundred colored citizens, many of whom were
fugitives.^ Neyertheless one cannot doubt that the repre-
sentatives of this class were numerous and widely scattered
throughout the whole territory of the free zone, for refer-
ence is made by many surviving abolitionists not only to
individual refugees or single families of refugees that dwelt
in their neighborhood, but even to settlements a considerable
part of whose people were runaway slaves. Where condi-
tions were peculiarly favorable it was not an unknown thing
for runaways to conclude their journeys when scarcely more
than within the borders of free territory. The Rev. Thomas
C. Oliver, of Windsor, Canada, is authority for the state-
ment that fugitive settlers swarmed among their Quaker
protectors at Greenwich, New Jersey, on the very edge of
a slave state. ^ In communities situated at greater distance
from the sectional line, like Columbus^ and Akron,* Ohio,
Elmira^ and Buffalo,^ New York, and Detroit, Michigan,
many fugitives are known to have lived. The Rev. Calvin
Fairbank relates that, while visiting Detroit in 1849, he dis-
covered several families he had helped from slavery living
near the city. He went to see these families, and afterward
wrote concerning them : " Living near the Johnsons, and
like them contented and comfortable, I found the Stewart
and Coleman families, for whom I had also lighted the path
of freedom."^ In the vicinity of Sandy Lake, in the north-
western part of Pennsylvania, there was a colony of colored
people, most of whom were runaway slaves.^
Such evidence, which is local in its nature, should be con-
sidered in conjunction with the general estimates of those
persons that expressed opinions after wide observation in
regard to the whole number of fugitive settlers in the North.
1 Clipping from the Commonwealth, preserved in a scrap-book relating to
Theodore Parker, Boston Public Library.
2 Conversation with Mr. Oliver, Windsor, Ont., Aug. 2, 1895.
' Conversation with the Rev. James Poindexter, Columbus, O., summer
of 1895. * History of Summit County, Ohio, pp. 579, 580.
^ Letters of Mrs. Susan L. Crane, Elmira, N.Y.
6 See p. 250, this chapter. ' The Chicago Tribune, Jan. 29, 1893.
8 Letter of John F. Hogue, Greenville, Pa., Nov. 25, 1895.
RISKS OF FUGITIVE SETTLERS IN THE STATES 237
The most indefinite of these contemporary opinions is that
of the veteran underground helper, Samuel J. May, who
states that "hundreds ventured to remain this side of the
Lakes." ^ Other judges attempt to put their estimates into
figures ; thus, Henry "Wilson thinks that by 1850 twenty
thousand had found homes in the free states ; ^ Mr. Franklin
B. Sanborn, admitting the inherent difficulty of the calcula-
tion, places the number at from twenty-five thousand to fifty
thousand; ^ and the Canadian refugee, Josiah Henson, wrote
in 1852 : " It is estimated that the number of fugitive slaves
in the various free states . . . amounts to 50,000."*
Fugitives that thus dwelt in the Northern states for a
longer or shorter period did so at their own risk, and in
general against the advice of their helpers. Their reliance
for safety was altogether upon their own wariness and the
public sentiment of the communities where they lived, and
until slavery perished in the Civil War they were subjected
to the fear of surprise and seizure'^ The Southern people
apparently regarded their right to recover their escaped
slaves as unquestionable as their right to reclaim their
strayed cattle, and they were determined to have the former
as freely and fully recognized in the North as the latter ; ^
and it might be added that there were not a few people in the
North quite willing to admit the slaveholder's right freely
to reclaim his human property, and to aid him in doing so.
What the sentiment was that prevailed in the North during
the twenties and thirties of the present century is evidenced
in certain laws enacted by the legislatures of some of the
states in line with the Federal Slave Law of 1793. Thus, in
an act passed by the assembly of Pennsylvania, March 25,
1826, provision was made for the issuance by courts of
record of the commonwealth of certificates or warrants
^ Some Secollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 297.
= Bise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. II, p. 304 ; see also E. B.
Andrews' History of the United States, Vol. II, p. .36.
'Conversation with Mr. Sanborn, Cambridge, Mass., March, 1897.
* The Life of Josiah Benson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by Himself,
p. 97.
'James H. Fairchild, The Underground Railroad, Tract No. 87, in
Vol. rv, Western Reserve Historical Society, p. 106.
238 UNDERGBOUND EAILROAD
of removal for negroes or mulattoes, claimed to be fugi-
tives from labor ; ^ and in a law enacted by the legislature
of Ohio, February 26, 1839, it was provided that any justice
of the peace, judge of a court of record, or mayor should
authorize the arrest of a person claimed as a fugitive slave
on the affidavit of the claimant or his agent, and that the
judge of a court of record before whom the fugitive was
brought should grant a certificate of removal upon the
presentation of satisfactory proof.^
Among those that paid homage to such laws as these, and
thus made the North an unsafe refuge for slaves, were to be
found representatives of all classes of society. Samuel J.
May opens to view the convictions of some of the most
cultured people of his day by the following incidents related
concerning two well-known New England clergymen. " The
excellent Dr. E. S. Gannett, of Boston, was heard to say,
more than once, very emphatically, and to justify it, ' that
he should feel it to be his duty to turn away from his door
a fugitive slave, — unfed, unaided in any way, rather than
set at naught the law of the land.'
" And Rev. Dr. Dewey, whom we accounted one of the
ablest expounders and most eloquent defenders of our Uni-
tarian faith, — Dr. Dewey was reported to have said at two
different times, in public lectures or speeches during the
fall of 1850 and the winter of 1851, that ' he would send his
mother into slavery, rather than endanger the Union, by re-
sisting this law enacted by the constituted government of
the nation.' He has often denied that he spoke thus of his
'maternal relative,' and therefore I allow that he was misun-
derstood. But he has repeatedly acknowledged that he did
say, ' I would consent that my own brother, my own son,
should go, ten times rather would I go myself into slavery,
than that this Union should be sacrificed.' " ^ After the
occurrence of the famous Jerry rescue at Syracuse, October
1, 1851, many newspapers representing both political parties
1 G. M. Stroud, A Sketch of the Laws Belating to Slavery, 2d ed., 1856,
pp. 281, 282.
' Statutes of the State of Ohio, 1841, collated by J. R. Swan, pp. 595-600.
' Some BecoUections of our Anti-SlavetT/ Conflict, p. 367.
RISKS OF FUGITIVE SETTLERS IN THE STATES 239
emphatically condemned the successful resistance made to
the law by the abolitionists as " a disgraceful, demoralizing
and alarming act." ^
There were not wanting in almost every community mem-
bers of the shiftless class of society that were always ready
to obstruct the passage of fugitive slaves to the North, and
whose most vigorous exercise was taken in the course of
some slave-hunting adventure. The Rev. W. M. Mitchell,
who had had this class to contend with in the performance
of his underground work during a number of years in Ohio,
characterized it in a description, penned in 1860, in which
he sets forth one of the conditions that made the Northern
states an unsafe refuge for self -liberated negroes. "The
progress of the Slave," he wrote, " is very much impeded by
a class of men in the Northern States who are too lazy to
work at respectable occupations to obtain an honest living,
but prefer to obtain it, if possible, whether honestly or dis-
honestly, by tracking runaway slaves. On seeing advertise-
ments in the newspapers of escaped slaves, with rewards
offered, they, armed to the teeth, saunter in and through
Abolition Communities or towns, where they are likely to
find the object of their pursuit. They sometimes watch the
houses of known Abolitionists. . . . We are hereby warned,
and for our own safety and that of the Slave, we act with
excessive caution. The first discoverer of these bloody
rebels communicates their presence to others of our com-
pany, that the entire band in that locality is put on their
guard. If the slave has not reached us, we are on the look-
out, with greater anxiety than the hunters, for the fugitive,
to prevent his falling into the possession of those demons
in human shape. On the other hand should the Slave be so
fortunate as to be in our possession at the time, we are com-
pelled to keep very quiet, until the hunter loses all hopes of
finding him, therefore gives up the search as a bad job, or
1 Some Recollections of Our Anti- Slavery Conflict, p. 380. The newspa-
pers named by Mr. May are, The Advertiser and The American of Rochester,
The Gazette and Observer of Utica, The Oneida Whig, The Begister, The
Argus and The Express of Albany, The Courier and Inquirer and The
Express of New York.
240 UNDERGROUND RAILKOAD
moves on to another Abolition Community, which gives us
an opportunity of removing the Fugitive further from danger,
or sending him towards the North Star. . . ."^
It is not to be supposed, of course, that the business of
slave-hunting was carried on mainly by the persons here
described in such uncomplimentary terms. Persons of this
type contented themselves generally, no doubt, with acting as
spies and informers, and rarely engaged in the excitement of
a slave-hunt except as the aids of Southern planters or their
agents. If it is true that there was a sentiment averse to sla-
very prevailing through many years in the North, it is also true
that the residents of the free states for the most part con-
ceded the right of Southerners to pursue and recover their
fugitives without hindrance from their Northern neighbors.
The free states thus became what the abolitionists called
the " hunting-ground " of the South, and as early as 1830 or
1835 the pursuit of slaves began to attract wide attention.
During the years following many localities, especially in the
middle states, were visited from time to time by parties on
the trail of the fleeing bondman, or seeking out the secluded
home of some self-freed slave ; and after the enactment of
the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 Southerners became more
energetic than before in pushing the search for their escaped
chattels. It has been recorded that "more than two hundred
arrests of persons claimed as fugitives were made from the
[ time of the passage of the Bill to the middle of 1856. About
a dozen of these were free persons, who succeeded in estab-
lishing the claim that they never had been slaves ; other
persons, equally free, were carried off. Half a dozen rescues
were made, and the rest of these cases were delivered to their
owners. These arrests took place more frequently in Penn-
sylvania than in any other Northern state. Many fugitives
were caught and carried back, of whom we have no accounts,
save that they were seen on the deck of some river steamboat,
in the custody of their owners, without even passing through
the formality of appearing before a commissioner. About two-
thirds of the persons arrested as above had trials. When the
arrests to the number of two hundred, at least, can be traced,
1 The Underground Bailroad, pp. 13, 14.
EFFECT OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW OF 1850 241
and their dates fixed, during six years, we may suppose that
the Bill was not, as some politicians averred, practically of
little consequence."^
Concerniug the efficiency of the new law there is a differ-
ence of opinion among the contemporary writers that com-
mented upon it ; but there could be no disagreement as to
the distress into which it plunged some of the refugees long
resident in the free states. In not a few instances these
persons had married, acquired homes, and were rearing their
families in peace and happiness. Under the Fugitive Slave
Act some of these settlers were seized upon the affidavit
of their former owners, and with the sanction of the federal
authority were carried back into slavery. Among the many
cases that might be cited the following will serve to illus-
trate the misfortunes ever ready to be precipitated upon
fugitive settlers in the Northern states. In 1851 John
Bolding, claimed as the property of a citizen of Columbia,
South Carolina, was arrested in Poughkeepsie, New York,
and taken back to the South. Bolding was a young man
of good character, recently married, and the possessor of
a small tailor shop in Poughkeepsie.^ In August, 1853,
George Washington McQuerry,of Cincinnati, was remanded
to slavery in Kentucky. He had lived several years in Ohio,
had married a free woman, and they had three children.^
In September, 1853, a family of colored persons at Union-
town, Pennsylvania, were claimed as slaves by a Virginian.
Their statement that they had been permitted by their mas-
ter to visit friends in Fayette County did not prevent their
immediate restoration to him.* In May, 1857, Addison White,
a runaway from Kentucky, was found living near Mechan-
icsburg, Ohio, where he had been at work about six months
earning means to send for his wife and children. Some of
the abolitionists of the neighborhood prevented his reclama-
tion.^ In three of these cases at least the reenslavement of
the refugees was prevented by an abolition sentiment locally
1 Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Vol. II, p. 93.
* The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims, by Samuel May, Jr., 1861, p. 19.
» Ibid., p. 31. See Appendix B, p. 374. * Ibid., p. 68 et seq.
' See Appendix B, p. 375.
242 UNDERGROTMD RAILROAD
strong enough to lead to the purchase of the slaves from
their claimants ; but it is noteworthy that public opinion in
the neighborhoods where these runaways lived was unable
to shield them from capture.
The refugees that preferred to settle in the Northern
states rather than in Canada naturally made homes for
themselves in anti-slavery communities among tried friends.
Here they could rest with some assurance upon the benevo-
lence of these localities and feel safe, although their liberty
was still in danger. A slave-hunter in entering such neigh-
borhoods was obliged to move with great caution; he was in
the midst of strangers, with few allies, and his scheme was
likely to fail if his presence became known. Sometimes,
when he was in the very act of leading the captive back to
the South in bonds, he would find his progress interrupted
by a crowd, his authority questioned, his return to the office
of a magistrate insisted upon, and ultimately, perhaps, his
prisoner released by a procedure more or less formal. The
slave-hunter that incautiously flourished weapons and made
threats was likely to be arrested and subjected to such addi-
tional delays and inconveniences as would render his under-
taking expensive as well as vexatious. There can be no
doubt that this was the experience of many slave-owners
that sought to recover their servants in the free states. Mr.
Clay touched on this point, April 22, 1850, in presenting
petitions to the United States Senate from four citizens of
Kentucky. These persons, he said, " state that each of them
has lost a slave. . . . That these slaves have taken refuge
in the state of Ohio, and that it is in vain for them to at-
tempt to recapture them ; that they cannot go there and
attempt to recover their property without imminent hazard to
their lives." ^ This statement, reiterating the idea contained
in the petitions themselves, namely, that the danger attend-
ing pursuit was great, is too strong in reference to a large
number of the abolition communities in the Northern states,
in many of which non-resistance principles were advocated.
At the same time it must be remembered that the usual
methods of slave-catchers were not conciliatory to the people
^ Congressional Globe, New Series, Vol, XKII, Part I, p, 793.
INCREASED DIFFICULTY OE EECLAMATION 243
among whom they went, and that their bravado sometimes
secured for them rough treatment at the hands of a mob,
especially if the number of colored people present was large
enough to warrant their venting their outraged feelings.
The difficulty of recovering slave property in the North
had been considerable for some years, and it was steadily
growing greater. The uncertainty of reclamation in the
large number of cases made the whole business unprofitable
and undesirable for slave-owners. A writer in the North
American Review for July, 1850, says, " Though thousands of
slaves have escaped by crossing the Ohio River, or Mason
and Dixon's line, during the last five years, no attempt has
been made to reclaim them in more than one case out of a
thousand." ^ If one takes this statement as meant to con-
vey merely the idea that the number of pursuits was ex-
tremely small in proportion to the number of escapes there
will be no difficulty in accepting it, for probably this was the
fact down to 1850 ; and the explanation of it, so far as can
be gathered from the lips of Southern men, is to be found
in the strong probability of failure in undertaking these
costly enterprises. Thus Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in his
argument in favor of a new fugitive slave law, declared that,
imder the existing conditions, " you may as well go down
into the sea and endeavor to recover from his native element a
fish which has escaped from you, as expect to recover a . . .
fugitive. Every difficulty is throvra in your way by the
population. . . . There are armed mobs, rescues. This is
the real state of things."^
^The law of 1850 was intended to remove the occasion for
such complaints on the part of slaveholders, and secure
them in the recovery and possession of their property. The
effect of its provisions upon the South was to arouse slave-
owners to greater activity in the pursuit of their chattels,
while in the North the effect was to increase greatly the
determination in the minds of many to resist the enforce-
ment of the law. Despite the severe penalties it levelled
1 F. Bowen on " Extradition of Fugitive Slaves," Vol. LXXI, p. 252 et seq.
2 Congressional Globe, Thirty-first Congress, First Session, p. 1583 ; also
M. 6. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 31.
244, UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
against those that should be guilty of shielding the refugee,
the expression of sympathy for fugitive settlers was open
and hearty in many quarters ; and public meetings were held
by abolitionists to proclaim defiance to the law and protection
to the fugitive. At Lowell, Massachusetts, an immense Free
Soil meeting adopted resolutions inviting former residents
of the city to return from Canada, where they had taken
refuge ; ^ at Syracuse, New York, a gathering of all parties de-
clared its abhorrence of the Fugitive Slave Law, and formed
an association or vigilance committee " so that the Southern
oppressors may know that the people of Syracuse and its
vicinity are prepared to sustain one another in resisting the
encroachments of despotism ";2 at Boston an indignation
meeting was held " for the denunciation of the law and the
expression of sympathy and cooperation with the fugitive."
Among the resolutions adopted at this meeting, one advised
" the fugitive slaves and colored inhabitants of Boston and
the neighborhood to remain with us, for we have not the
smallest fear that any one of them will be taken from us
and carried off to bondage ; and we trust that such as have
fled in fear will return to their business and homes " ;
another resolution proposed the appointment of a vigilance
committee "to secure the fugitives and colored inhabitants
of Boston and vicinity from any invasion of their rights
by persons acting under the law." ^ In Ashtabula County,
Ohio, a meeting at Hartsgrove resolved, " that we hold the
Fugitive Slave Law in utter contempt . . . and that we will
not aid in catching the fugitive, but will feed him, and pro-
tect him with all the means in our power, and that we will
pledge our sympathy and property for the relief of any per-
son in our midst who may suffer any penalties for an honor-
able opposition ... to the requirements of this law." * In
other portions also of the free states meetings were held in
which the purpose was avowed to protect fugitive slaves.^
1 Wilson, Mise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. II, p. 306.
2 Samuel J. May, Some Becollections of Our Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 353.
' John Weiss, Life and Correspondence, of Theodore Parker, Vol. II, p. 94.
* Article by the Rev. S. D. Peet, in History of Ashtabula County, Ohio,
pp. 33, 34.
t " No sooner was the deed done, the Fugitive Slave Act sent forth to be
PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS 245
The change of sentiment in the North from passive ac-
quiescence in the law to active resistance to it is best seen,
perhaps, in the history of the so-called personal liberty laws.
The real object of these statutes was to impair the operation
of the national Fugitive Slave Law, although their proposed
object was in most cases to prevent the removal of free
colored citizens to the South under the claim that they were
fugitive slaves. These statutes were passed by the legis-
latures of various states during the period of a little more
than thirty years from 1824 to 1858, the greater number
being enacted after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
in 1854. The first two in the series were those enacted by
Indiana and Connecticut in 1824 and 1838 respectively, and
provided that on appeal fugitives might have a trial by jury.
In 1840 Vermont and New York framed laws granting jury
trial, and also providing attorneys to defend fugitives. In
1842 the Prigg decision gave the occasion for a new class of
statutes ; the release of state authorities from the execution
of the Slave Law by the opinion handed down by Justice
Story was taken advantage of in Massachusetts, Vermont,
Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and the officers of the states
were forbidden from performing the duties imposed by the
law of 1793. The decade from 1850 to 1860 is marked by a
fresh crop of these personal liberty acts, due to the sentiment
aroused by the law of 1850 and aggravated by the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise. As the new national law avoided
the employment of state officers, state legislation was now
directed in the main to limiting the powers of the executors
of the laws as far as possible, and depriving them of the
facilities of action. Thus, the new laws generally provided
counsel for any one arrested as a fugitive ; secured to him a
trial surrounded by the usual safeguards ; prohibited the use
of state jails ; and forbade state officers to issue writs or give
aid to the claimant. The penalty for the violation of these
the law of the land, than outcries of contempt and defiance came from every
free state, and pledges of protection were given to the colored population.
It is not within the scope of my plan to attempt an account of the indigna-
tion meetings that were held in places too numerous to be even mentioned
here." S. J. May, Some Becollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 349.
246 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
provisions was a heavy fine and imprisonment. " Sucli acts,"
it is said, " were passed in Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode
Island, in Massachusetts, Michigan and Maine. Later, laws
were also enacted in Wisconsin, Kansas, Ohio and Pennsyl-
vania. Of the other Northern States, two only. New Jersey
and California, gave any official sanction to the rendition of
fugitives. In New Hampshire, New York, Indiana, Illinois,
Iowa and Miiinesota, however, no full personal liberty laws
were passed." ^
Notwithstanding the disposition shown in many parts of
the free states to protect fugitive settlers, the Slave Law of
1850 spread consternation and distress among them, and
caused numbers to leave the little homes they had estab-
lished for themselves, and renew their search for liberty.
Perhaps in no community of the North did fugitive settlers
feel themselves more secure than in Boston, the city of
Garrison, Phillips and Parker ; here they were gathered to-
gether by the Rev. Leonard B. Grimes, a colored man, who
soon organized a church of fugitive slaves, and such was the
feeling of confidence among them that in 1849 a building
was begun for this unique congregation. Within a few
months, however, the new Slave Law was enacted, and wrung
from this band of runaways a cry of anguish that may be
justly regarded as expressing the distress of the people of
this class in all quarters of the free states. At a meeting
of the Boston refugees, held October 5, 1850, an appeal to
the clergy of Massachusetts was issued, in the preamble of
which was embodied the slaves' view of their own situation,
and their pitiful entreaty for help. As "trembling, pro-
scribed and hunted fugitives . . now scattered through
the various towns and villages of Massachusetts, and mo-
mentarily liable to be seized by the strong arm of govern-
ment, and hurried back to stripes, tortures and bondage
. . ." they implored the clergy to '"lift up (their) voices
like a trumpet' against the Fugitive Slave Bill, recently
adopted by Congress. . . ."^ The church building of the
1 M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 65-70, and the references there given.
" Scrap-book of clippings, circulars, etc., presented to the Boston Public
Library by Mrs. L. D. Parker.
COKSTERNATION AMONG FUGITIVES IN THE NORTH 247
fugitive settlers " was arrested midway towards its comple-
tion, and the members were scattered in wild dismay. More
than forty fled to Canada. One of their number, Shadrach,
was seized, but more fortunate than the hapless Sims, who
had no fellowship with them, he succeeded in making his
escape."^ An individual case that illustrates the sudden
disaster experienced by niunerous households throughout the
North was recorded by the Rev. J. S. C. Abbott, in January,
1852. The case occurred in Boston in 1851 : " A colored
girl, eighteen years of age, a few years ago escaped from
slavery at the South. Through scenes of adventure and
peril she found her way to Boston, obtained employment,
secured friends, and became a consistent member of a Meth-
odist church. She became interested in a very worthy
young man, of her own complexion, who was a member of
the same chiirch. They were soon married. Their home,
though humble, was the abode of piety and contentment.
. . . Seven years passed away ; they had two little boys,
one six and the other four years of age. These children, the
sons of a free father, but of a mother who had been a slave,
by the laws of our Southern states were doomed to their
mother's fate. These Boston boys, born beneath the shadow
of Faneuil Hall, the sons of a free citizen of Boston, and
educated in the Boston free schools, were, by the com-
promises of the Constitution, admitted to be slaves, the
property of a South Carolinian planter. The Boston father
had no right to his own sons. The law, however, had long
been considered a dead letter. The Christian mother, as she
morning and evening bowed with her children in prayer, felt
that they were safe from the slave-hunter, surrounded as
they were by the churches, the schools, and the free institu-
tions of Massachusetts.
" The Fugitive Slave Law was enacted. It revived the
hopes of the slave-owners. A young, healthy, energetic
mother, with two fine boys, was a rich prize. . . . Good
men began to say : ' We must enforce this law ; it is one of
the compromises of the Constitution.' Christian ministers
began to preach: 'The voice of the law is the voice of God.
1 C. E. Stevens, Anthony Burns, A History, 1856, p. 208.
248 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
There is no higher rule of duty.' . . . The poor woman
was panic-stricken. Her friends gathered around her and
trembled for her. Her husband was absent from home, a
seaman on board one of our Liverpool packets. She was
afraid to get out of doors lest some one from the South
should see her and recognize her. One day, as she was
going to the grocery for some provisions, her quick and
anxious eye caught a glimpse of a man prowling around,
whom she immediately recognized as from the vicinity of
her old home of slavery. Almost fainting with terror, she
hastened home, and, taking her two children by the hand,
fled to the house of a friend. She and her trembling chil-
dren were hid in the garret. In less than one hour after her
escape, the officer with a writ came for her arrest.
"... At midnight, her friends took her in a hack, and
conveyed her, with her children, to the house of her pastor.
A prayer-meeting had been appointed there, at that hour, in
behalf of the suffering sister. A small group of stricken
hearts were assembled. . . . Groanings and lamentations
filled the room. No one could pray. . . . Other fugitives
were there, trembling in view of a doom more dreadful to
them than death. After an hour of weeping . . . they
took this Christian mother and her children in a hack, and
conveyed them to one of the Cunard steamers, which for-
tunately was to sail for Halifax the next day. . . . Her
brethren and sisters of the church raised a little money from
their scanty means to pay her passage, and to save her for a
few days from starving, after her first arrival in the cold land
of strangers. Her husband soon returned to Boston, to find
his home desolate, his wife and his children exiles in a
foreign land.
" I think that this narrative may be relied upon as accu-
rate. I received the facts from the lips of one, a member of
the church, who was present at that midnight 'weeping-
meeting,' before the Lord. Such is slavery in Boston, in the
year 1852. Has the North nothing to do with slavery ? " ^
1 Quoted by ¥. B. Sanborn, in his Life of Dr. S. G-. Howe, the Philan-
thropist, pp. 237, 238, 239. Similar stories are related by Lydia Maria Child,
in her Life of Isaac T. Hopper, pp. 455-458.
EXODUS OF FUGITIVES FROM THE STATES 249
In localities nearer to slave territory than Boston, and in
places where anti-slavery sentiment was perhaps less pro-
nounced, it may be supposed that terror was not less preva-
lent among fugitive settlers. The members of the colored
community near Sandy Lake in northwestern Pennsylvania,
many of whom had purchased small farms and had them
partly paid for, sold out or gave away their farms and
went to Canada in a body.^ The sudden disappearance of
refugees from their habitations in various other places as
soon as the character of the new law became noised abroad
was a phenomenon the cause of which was unmistakable.
Of the many that thus vanished from their accustomed
haunts,^ Josiah Henson, writing in 1852, said : " Some have
found their way to England, but the mass are flying to Can-
ada, where they feel themselves secure. Already several
thousands have gone thither, and have added considerably
to the number already settled, or partially settled, in that
part of the British dominions. . . ."^ As Mr. Henson was
a worker among the refugees in Canada he was in a position
to speak from his personal knowledge, and his testimony is sus-
tained by that of the Rev. Anthony Bingey, an escaped slave,
who helped receive fugitives at Amherstburg, Ontario, one
of the chief landing-places of the negro emigrants from the
United States. jNIr. Biugey states that after the Fugitive
Slave Law took effect the runaways came there " by fifties
every day, like frogs in Egypt." Before that time "many
had settled in the States, but after the Fugitive Slave Law
they could be taken, so they came in from all parts." * Sumner
estimated that, altogether, " as many as six thousand Chris-
tian men and women, meritorious persons, — a larger hand
than that of the escaping Puritans, — precipitately fled from
homes which they had established" to British soil. The
Liberator published a statement, made in February, 1851,
1 Letter of John F. Hogue, Greenville, Pa., Nov. 25, 1895; letter of the
Rev. James Lawson, Franklin, Pa., Nov. 25, 1895.
2 Life of William Lloyd Garrison, Vol. IH, p. 302. See also Ehodes's
Sistory of the United States, Vol. I, p. 198.
' The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave, as narrated by Himself,
pp. 97, 98, 99.
* Conversation with Mr. Bingey, Windsor, Ont. , July 31, 1896.
250 TJNDERGEOIIND RAILROAD
that the African Methodist and Baptist churches of Buffalo,
New York, had both lost a large number of members, the
loss of the former being given as one hundred. The Baptist
church of the colored people of Rochester, in the same state,
out of a membership of one hundred and fourteen, lost one
hundred and twelve, including the pastor. The African
Baptist church of Detroit lost eighty-four members at this
time.^
One must not imagine, however, that all the fugitives
migrated beyond the borders of the free states. No doubt
a considerable number, more daring than the rest,^ or in
some way favored by circumstances, chose to remain and
run the risk of discovery. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Hig-
ginson asserts that " For many years fugitive slaves came to
Massachusetts and remained, this lasting until the Fugitive
Slave Law was passed in 1850, and longer. Even after that
period we tried to keep them in Worcester, where I then
lived, it being a strong anti-slavery place, and they often
stayed." ^ Some of the fugitives that were induced to move
by the Slave Law only passed from one state into another,
instead of continuing their journey to regions beyond the
jurisdiction of a United States commissioner. Of a company
of blacks dwelling near the home of Elijah F. Pennypacker
in Chester County, Pennsylvania, at the time of the enact-
ment of the law of 1850, it is said that while some went to
Canada, some went to New York and some to Massachu-
setts.* It was noted above that the new church of the fugi-
tives of Boston was stopped midway in the process of building
by the promulgation of the act, but it is significant that the
structure was completed soon after. Evidently not all of
the refugees departed from the city of their adoption. It is
related that " When the first fury of the storm had blown over,
Mr. Grimes set himself with redoubled energy to repair the
1 Life of Garrison, Vol. Ill, p. 302 ; also foot-note, pp. 302, 303.
2 ' ' Some of the boldest chose to remain, and armed themselves to defend
their freedom, instinctively calculating that the sight of such an exigency
would make the Northern heart beat too rapidly for prudence I " Weiss,
Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Vol. II, p. 92.
3 Letter of Mr. Higginson, Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 5, 1894.
* R. C. Smedley, History of the Underground Railroad, p. 210.
UNDERGROUND MEN AMONG FUGITIVES IN THE NORTH 251
wastes that liad been made. He collected money from the
charitable, and purchased the members of his church out of
slavery, that they might return without fear to the fold.
He made friends among the rich, who advanced funds for
the completion of his church. At length it was finished,
and, as if for an omen of good, was dedicated on the first day
when Burns stood for trial before Commissioner Loring. " ^
Runaways entering the free states for the first time after
the subsidence of the paroxysm of fear among their fellows
sometimes remained in neighborhoods where the conditions
were supposed to be favorable to their safety. Some of
these were never disturbed, and consequently never went to
Canada at all.
Among the fugitive settlers in the Northern states there
were some at least that became widely known among aboli-
tionists and others as active agents of the Underground
Railroad. Frederick Douglass was one of these, and during
his residence in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and later dur-
ing his residence in Rochester, New York, he was able to -
help many runaways. The Rev. J. W. Loguen, who be-
came a bishop of the African Methodist Church about 1869,
settled in Syracuse, New York, in 1841, and became imme-
diately one of the managers of secret operations there. In
his hospitable home, Samuel J. May relates, was fitted up
an apartment for fugitive slaves, and,''for years before the
Emancipation Act, scarcely a week passed without some one,
in his flight from slavedom to Canada, enjoyed shelter and
repose at Elder Loguen's."^ Lewis Hayden, for many
years a prominent citizen of Boston, who owed his liberty
to the self-sacrificing efforts of the Rev. Calvin Fairbank
and j\Iiss Delia Webster in September, 1844,^ made a prac-
tice of harboring slaves in his house, number 66 Phillips
1 C. E. Stevens, Anthony Burns, A History, p. 208. In a foot-note it is
said, " The chnrch is a neat and commodious brick structure, two stories in
heiglit, and handsomely finished in the interior. It will seat five or six
hundred people. The whole cost, including the land, was $13,000, of
which, through the exertion of Mr. Grimes, $10,000 have already (1866)
been paid. ..."
" Some Becollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict, pp. 202, 203.
» Sev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times, pp. 46, 48, 49.
252 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Street. " Some there are," a recent writer declares, " who
well remember when William Craft was in hiding here from
the slave-catchers, and how Lewis Hayden had placed two
kegs of gunpowder on the premises, resolved to blow up
his house rather than surrender the fugitive. The heroic
frenzy of the resolute black face, as with match in hand
Hayden stood waiting the man-stealers, those who saw it
declare that they can never forget."^
William Wells Brown, who distinguished himself as an
anti-slavery lecturer in this country and England, rendered
considerable service to fellow-fugitives shortly after his
escape from Missouri about 1840.^ Securing employment on
a Lake Erie steamboat, he was able to provide the means of
transportation for many runaways across the lake. As the
boat frequently touched at Cleveland on its trips to and fro
between Buffalo and Detroit, Mr. Brown made an arrange-
ment with some Cleveland friends to furnish transportation,
which was done without charge, for any negroes they might
wish to send to Canada. The result was that delegations
of anxious refugees were often taken aboard at the Cleve-
land wharf. Brown engaged in this service in the early
forties, and his companies were therefore small, but he
sometimes gave passage to four or five at one time. " In
the year 1842," he says, " I conveyed, from the first of May
to the first of December, sixty-nine fugitives over Lake Erie
to Canada. In 1843 I visited Maiden, in upper Canada,
and counted seventeen in that small village whom I had
assisted in reaching Canada." ^ John W. Jones, a respected
citizen of Elmira, New York, made his way in 1844 from
Virginia to the city where he still lives. During the follow-
ing year he succeeded in aiding two younger brothers to
join him, and thereafter he continued, in cooperation with
Mr. Jervis Langdon and other abolitionists of Elmira, to
succor his brethren in their search for places of refuge.
After the construction of the Northern Central Railroad
1 Article by A. H. Grimk^, on "Anti-Slavery Boston," in The New Eng-
land, Magazine, December, 1890, p. 458.
^ S. J. May, Some HecoUections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 289.
2 Narrative of William W- Brown, A Fugitive Slave, pp. 106, 107, 108.
UNDERGROUND MEN AMONG FUGITIVES IN THE NORTH 253
through Elmira, Mr. Jones effected an arrangement with
some of the employees of that road by which his friends
could be carried through to the Canadian border in baggage-
cars. At the same time he was in regular correspondence
with William Still, the agent of the central underground
station at Philadelphia, who frequently sent him companies
of passengers requiring immediate transportation. ^ John
H. Hooper, a fugitive from the Eastern Shore of Maryland
and an acquaintance there of Fred Douglass, kept a station
at Troy, New York, where he settled.^ Louis Washington,
who fled from Richmond, Virginia, to Columbus, Ohio, be-
came a conductor of the Underground Road at that point.
Mr. James Poindexter, a well-known colored clergyman of
Columbus, knew Washington intimately, and testifies that
he had teams and wagons with which he conveyed the mid-
night pilgrims on their way.* There are other cases of
fugitive settlers that became members of the large company
of underground operators. But a sufficient number have
been mentioned to indicate that they were not rare. The
first and the last of the seven named did not continue long
in the status of escaped slaves. Frederick Douglass secured
his liberty in a legal way through the payment by English
friends of the sum of $750 to his master. Louis Washing-
ton purchased his own freedom. The other five, so far as
known, were never relieved by the payment of money from
the claims of their masters. Most, if not all, of these men
remained in the Northern states after the passage of the
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
1 Letters of Mrs. Susan Crane, Elmira, N.T. ; letters of John W. Jones,
Elmira, N.Y. ; see also StiU, Underground Railroad Records, p. 530.
2 Letters of Mr. Martin L Townsend, Troy. N.Y., Sept. 4, 1896, and
April 3, 1897.
° Conversation with Mr. Poindexter, Columbus, C, in the summer of 1895.
CHAPTER IX
PEOSECUTIONS OP TTlJDERGKOTHSrD KAILBOAD MEN
The aversion to a law for the rendition of fugitive slaves
that early manifested itself in the North was perhaps fore-
shadowed in the hesitating manner in- which the question was
dealt with by Congress. The original demand for legislation
was caused by the activity of kidnappers in Pennsylvania ; but
the first bill, reported from committee to the House in Novem-
ber, 1791, was dropped for some reason not now discoverable.
At the end of March in the following year a committee
of the Senate was appointed to consider the matter, but it
accomplished nothing. At the beginning of the next session
a second Senate committee was chosen, and from this body a
bill emanated. This bill proved to be unsatisfactory, how-
ever, and after the committee had been remodelled by the
addition of two new members the bill was recommitted with
instructions to amend. With some slight change the measure
proposed by the committee was adopted by the Senate, Jan-
uary 18 ; and after an interval of nearly three weeks the
House passed it with little or no debate, by a vote of forty-
eight to seven. Thus for nearly a year and a quarter the
subject was under the consideration of Congress before it
could be embodied in a bill and sent to the executive for
his signature. On February 12, 1793, President Washington
signed this bill and it became a law.^
The object of the law was, of course, to enforce the consti-
tutional guarantee in regard to the delivery of fugitives from
service to their masters. An analysis of the law will show
that forcible seizure of the alleged fugitive was authorized ;
that the decision of the magistrate before whom he was to be
taken was allowed to turn on the testimony of the master, or
> M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 17, 18.
254
ii
< ?
e8 O
^ §.2
GEOUNDS OF ATTACK UPON THE SLAVE LAWS 255
the affidavit of some magistrate in tlie state from wMch he
came ; and that trial by jury was denied. Persons attempt-
ing to obstruct the law by harboring or concealing a fugitive
slave, resisting his arrest, or securiug his rescue, were liable
to a fine of five hundred dollars for the benefit of the claimant,
and the right of action on account of these injuries was
reserved to the claimant.^
The exclusive regard for the rights of the owner exhibited
in these provisions was fitted to stir the popular sense of
justice in the Northern states, most of which had already
ranged themselves by individual action on the side of liberty.
Persons moved by the appeals of the hunted negro to trans-
gress the statute would naturally try to avoid its penalties by
concealment of their acts, and this we know was what they
did. The whole movement denominated the Underground
Railroad was carried on in secret, because only thus could
the fugitives, in whose behalf it originated, and their abettors,
by whom it was maintained, be secure from the law. When
through mischance or open resistance, as sonjetimes happened,
an offender against the law was discovered and brought to
trial, the case was not allowed to progress far before the
Fugitive Recovery Act itself was assailed vigorously by
the counsel for the defendant. The grounds of attack in-
cluded the absence of provision for jury trial, the authority
of the claimant or his agent to arrest without a warrant, the
antagonism between state and federal legislation, the supposed
repugnancy of the law of 1793 to the Ordinance of 1787, the
denial of the power of Congress to legislate on the subject of
fugitive slaves, and the question as to the responsibility for
the execution of the law. Nearly if not all of these disputed
points were involved in the great question as to the constitu-
tionality of the congressional act, a question that kept work-
ing up through the successive decisions of the courts to irritate
and disturb the peace between the sections, that the fugitive
clause in the federal Constitution, the act of 1793 itself, and
the judicial affirmations f oUowing in their train were intended
to promote.
The omission of a provision from the law of Congress secur-
1 Statutes at Large, 1, 302-305.
256 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
ing trial by jury to the alleged fugitive was at once remarked
by the friends of the bondman, and caused the law to be de-
nounced in the court-room as worthy only of the severest
condemnation.! As early as 1819, in the case of Wright vs.
Deacon, tried before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, it
was urged that the supposed fugitive was entitled to a jury
trial, but the arguments made in support of the claim have
not been preserved.^ The question was presented in several
subsequent cases of importance arising under the law of 1793,
namely, Jack vs. Martin, in 1835,^ Peter, alias Lewis Martin,
about 1837,* and State vs. Hoppess, in 1845.^ From the
reports of these cases one is not able to gather much in
the way of direct statement showing what were the grounds
1 Professor Eugene Wambaugh, of the Law School of Harvard University,
in a letter to the author, comments as follows on the source of the injustice
wrought by the Fugitive Slave acts : " The difficulty lay in the initial assump-
tion that a human being can be property. Grant this assumption, and there
follow many absurdities, among them the impossibility of framing a Fugitive
Slave Law that shall be both logical and humane. Human beings are entitled
to a trial of the normal sort, especially in a case involving the liability of per-
sonal restraint. Chattels, however, are entitled to no trial at all ; and it a
chattel be lost or stolen, the owner may retake it wherever he finds it, provided
he commits no breach of the peace. (3 Blackstone's Commentaries, 4.) If
slaves had been treated as ordinary chattels, there could have been no trial
as to the ownership of them, unless, indeed, there were a dispute between
competing claimants. There would have been, however, the fatal objection
that thus a free man — black, mulatto, or white — might be enslaved without
a hearing. Here, then, is a puzzle. If the man is a slave, he is entitled to
no trial at all. If he is free, he is entitled to a trial of the most careful sort,
surrounded with all the safeguards that have been thrown up by the law.
When there is such a dilemma, is it strange that there should be a com-
promise ? The Fugitive Slave Laws really were a compromise ; for in so far
as they provided for an abnormal and incomplete trial, a hearing before a
United States Commissioner, simply to determine rights as between the sup-
posed slave and the supposed master, they conceded the radical impossibility
of following out logically the supposition that human beings can be chattels,
and, in so far as they denied to the supposed slave the normal trial, they
assumed in advance that he was a slave. I need not vn-ite of the dilemma
further. A procedure intermediate between a formal trial and a total denial
of justice was probably the only solution practicable in those days ; but it
was an illogical solution, and the only logical solution was emancipation."
" 5 Sergeant and Bawle's Beports, 63. See Appendix B, p. 368.
» 14 WendeWs Beports, 514. See Appendix B, p. 368.
< In the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of
New York. 2 Fame's Beports, 352. * 2 Western Law Journal, 282.
DENIAL OF TRIAL BY JUEY 257
taken for the advocacy of trial by jury in such cases, but
the indications that appear are not to be mistaken. In
all of these cases it seems to have been insisted that the law
of 1793 failed to conform to the constitutional requirement on
this point ; and in State vs. Hoppess it is distinctly stated
that the law provided for a trial of the most important right
without a jury, contrary to the amendment of the Constitu-
tion declaring that " In suits at common law, where the
value shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury
shall be preserved . . .";i and that the act also authorized
the deprivation of a person of his or her liberty contrary to
another amendment, which declares that no person shall be
" deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of
law."^ In Jack vs. Martin, as probably in the other cases,
the obvious objection seems to have been made that the de-
nial of the jury contributed to make easy the enslavement of
free citizens. The courts, however, did not sustain these
objections ; thus, for example, in the last case named, Judge
Nelson, while admitting the defect of the law, decided in
conformity with it,^ and the claims upon the constitutional
guarantees, asserted in behalf of the supposed fugitive, were
also overruled, a reason given in the case of Wright vs. Deacon
being that the evident scope and tenor of both the Constitution
and the act of Congress favored the delivery of the fugitive
on a summary proceeding without the delay of a formal trial
in a court of common law. Another reason offered by the
court in this case, and repeated by the Circuit Court of the
United States for the Southern District of New York in
the matter of Peter, alias Lewis Martin, was that the exami-
nation under the federal slave law was only preliminary, its
purpose being merely to determine the claimant's right to
carry the fugitive back to the state whence he had fled, where
the question of slavery would properly be open to inquiry.
The mode of arrest permitted by the law was a cause of
irritation to the minds of abolitionists throughout the free
states, and became one of the points concerning which they
joined issue in the courts. The law empowered the claimant
1 Amendments, Article VII. ^ Ibid., Article V.
» 12 WendelVs Beports, 315-324.
258 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
to seize the fugitive wheresoever found for the purpose of
taking him before an officer to prove property. The circum-
stances that quickened the sympathy of a community into
active resistance to this feature of the law are fully illus-
trated in one of the earliest cases coming before a high
court, in which the question of seizure was brought up
for determination. The case is that of Commonwealth vs.
Griffith, which was tried in the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts, at the October term in 1823. From the
record of the matter appearing in the law-books, one gathers
that a slave, Randolph, who had fled from his master in
Virginia, found a refuge in New Bedford about 1818, where
by his thrift he acquired a dwelling-house. After several
years he was discovered by Griffith, his owner's agent, and
was seized without a warrant or other legal process, although
the agent had taken the precaution to have a deputy sheriff
present. The agent's intention was to take the slave before
a magistrate for examination, pursuant to the act of 1793. ^
New Bedford was a Quaker town, and the slave seems not
to have lacked friends, for the agent was at once indicted
for assault and battery and false imprisonment. The action
thus begun was prosecuted in the name of the state, under
the direction of Mr. Norton, the attorney-general. As
against the act of Congress the prosecution urged that
the Constitution did not authorize a seizure without some
legal process, and that such a seizure would manifestly be
contrary to the article of the amendments of the Constitu-
tion that asserted the right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreason-
able searches and seizures.^ The protest that if the law
was constitutional any citizen's house might be invaded
without a warrant under pretence that a negro was concealed
there called forth the interesting remark from Chief Justice
Parker that a case arising out of a constable's entering a
citizen's house without warrant in search of a slave had
come before him in Middlesex, and that he had held the act
to be a trespass. Nevertheless, the court sustained the law
^ 2 Pickering's Reports, 12. See Appendix B, p. 368.
» Amendments, Article IV ; 2 Pickering'' s Beports, 15, 16.
ARREST WITHOUT LEGAL PROCESS 259
on the ground that slaTes were not parties to the Constitu-
tion, and that the amendment referred to had relation only
to the parties.^
The question of arrest without warrant emerged later in
several other cases; for example, Johnson vs. Tompkins
(1833),2 the matter of Peter, alias Lewis Martin (1837),3
Prigg vs. Pennsylvania (1842),* and State vs. Hoppess
(1845).^ The line of objection followed by those opposing
the law in this series will be sufficiently indicated by the
arguments presented in the Massachusetts case of 1823,
treated above. The tribunals before which the later suits
were brought did not depart from the precedent set in the
early case, and the act of 1793 was invariably justified. In
Johnson vs. Tompkins the court pointed out that under
the law the claimant was not only free to arrest his fugitive
without a warrant, but that he was also free to do this un-
accompanied by any civil officer, although, as was suggested,
it was the part of prudence to have such an officer to keep
the peace.® In the famous case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania,
the Supreme Court of the United States went back of the
law of Congress to the Constitution in seeking the source
of the master's right of recaption, and laid down the prin-
ciple that "under and in virtue of the Constitution, the
owner of a slave is clothed with entire authority, in every
state ia the Union, to seize and recapture his slave, whenever
he can do it without any breach of the peace, or any illegal
violence. In this sense and to this extent this clause of
the Constitution may properly be said to execute itself, and
to require no aid from legislation, state or national."'
For many years before Prigg's case various states in the
North had considered it to be within the province of their
1 2 Pickering^s Beports, 19.
" In the Circuit Court of tlie United States for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania. 1 Baldwin's Circuit Court Beports, p. 571 et seq. See Ap-
pendix B, p. 368. « 2 Paine's Beports, 350. See Appendix B, p. 369.
* 16 Peters' Beports, 613.
6 2 Western Law Journal, 282. See Appendix B, p. 371.
6 1 Baldwin's Circuit Court Beports, 571 ; Hurd, Law of Freedom and
Bondage, Vol. II, p. 444.
' 16 Peters' Beports, 613.
260 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
legislative powers to enact laws dealing witli the subject of
fugitive slaves. It would be beside our purpose to enter
here upon an examination of these statutes, but it is proper
to say that the variety of particulars in which these differed
from the law concerning the same subject enacted by Con-
gress prepared the way for a series of legal contests in regard
to the question, whether the power to legislate in relation to
fugitive slaves could be exercised properly by the states as
well as by the federal government. This issue presented
itself in at least three notable cases under the law of 1793:
these were Jack vs. Martin (1835), Peter, alias Lewis Mar-
tin (1837), and Prigg vs. Pennsylvania (1842). The decisions
reached in the first and last cases are of especial significance,
because, in the first, the question of concurrent jurisdiction
constituted the subject of main interest for the Supreme
Court of New York, the court to which the case had been
taken from an inferior tribunal; while in the last case, the
importance attaches to the conclusive character of an adjudi-
cation pronounced by the most exalted court of the nation.
In Jack vs. Martin the action was begun under the New
York law of 1828 for the recovery of a fugitive from New
Orleans. Notwithstanding the fact that this law authorized
the seizure and return of fugitives to their owners, and that
in the case before us, as occurred also in the case of Peter,
alias Lewis Martin, the negro was adjudged to his claimant,
the law of the state was considered invalid, because the right
of legislation on the subject was held to belong exclusively
to the national government. ^
In Prigg's case^ a statute of Pennsylvania, passed in 1826,
and bearing the suggestive title, " An act to give effect to
the provisions of the Constitution of the United States rela-
tive to fugitives from labor, for the protection of free people
of color, and to prevent kidnapping," was violated by Edward
Prigg in seizing and removing a fugitive slave-woman and
her children from York County, Pennsylvania, into Mary-
land, where their mistress lived. In the argument made
before the Supreme Court in support of the state law, the au-
thority of the state to legislate was urged on the grotmd that
1 12 Wendell's Meports, 311, 316-318. ^ gee Appendix B, p. 370.
ANTAGONISM BETWEEN STATE AND FEDERAL LAWS 261
such authority was not prohibited to the states nor expressly
granted "in terms " to Congress; ^ that the statute of Penn-
sylvania had been enacted at the instance of Maryland, and
with a view to giving effect to the constitutional provision
relative to fugitives ; ^ that the states could best determine
how the duty of delivery enjoined upon them should be per-
formed so as to be made acceptable to their citizens ; ^ and
that the act of Congress was silent as to the rights of negroes
wrongfully seized and of the states whose territory was en-
tered and laws violated by persons acting under pretext of
right.* The Supreme Court did not sustain these objections.
A majority of the judges agreed with Justice Story in the
view that Congress alone had the power to legislate on the
subject of fugitive slaves. The reasons given for this view
were two: first, the constitutional source of the authority,
by virtue of which the force of an act of Congress pervades
the whole Union uncontrolled by state sovereignty or state
laws, and secures rights that otherwise would rest upon
interstate comity and favor; and, secondly, the necessity of
having a uniform system of regulations for all parts of the
United States, by which the differences arising from the
varieties of policy, local convenience and local feelings exist-
ing in the various states can be avoided. The right to retake
fugitive slaves and the correlative duty to deliver them were to
be " coextensive and uniform in remedy and operation through-
out the whole Union." While maintaining that the right of
legislation in this matter was exclusively vested in Congress,
the court insisted that it did not thereby interfere with the
police power of the several states, and that by virtue of this
power the states had the authority to arrest and imprison
runaway slaves, and to expel them from their borders, just as
they might do with vagrants, provided that in exercising
this jurisdiction the rights of owners to reclaim their slaves
secured by the Constitution and the legislation of Congress
were not impeded or destroyed.^
As the friends of runaway slaves sometimes sought to
oppose to the summary procedure of the federal law the
^ 16 Peters' Seports, 579. ^ Ibid., 58&-590. ' Ibid., 596.
* Ibid., 602. 5 Ibid., 612-617.
262 IMDEEGEOIIND RAILROAD
processes provided by state laws in behalf of fugitives, so
in their endeavor to overthrow the act of 1793, they occa-
sionally appealed to the Ordinance for the government of
the Northwest Territory. The Ordinance, it will be remem-
bered, contained a clause prohibiting slavery throughout the
region northwest of the Ohio River, and another authorizing
the surrender of slaves escaping into this territory.^ The
abolitionists took advantage of these provisions under cer-
tain circumstances, in the hope of securing the release of
those that had fallen into the eager grasp of the congres-
sional act, and at the same time of proving the incompati-
bility of this measure with the Ordinance. The attempt
to do these things was made in three well-known cases,
which came before the courts about 1845. The iirst of
these was State vs. Hoppess, tried before the Supreme
Court of Ohio on the circuit, to secure the liberation of a
slave that had fled from his keeper, but was afterwards
recaptured ; ^ the second was Vaughan vs. WiUiams, ad-
judicated in the Circuit Court of the United States for the
District of Indiana, a case originating in an action against
the defendant for rescuing certain fugitives ; ^ and the third
was Jones vs. Van Zandt, which was carried to the Su-
preme Court of the United States and there decided. This
last case grew out of the aid given nine runaways by Mr.
Van Zandt, through which one of them succeeded in escap-
ing.* The arguments, based upon the Ordinance, that were
advanced in these cases are adequately set forth in the report
of the first case, a report prepared by Salmon P. Chase, sub-
sequently Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States. These arguments, two in number, were as follows :
first, the Ordinance expressly prohibited slavery, and thereby
effected the immediate emancipation of all slaves in the Ter-
ritory ; and, secondly, the clause in the Ordinance providing
for the surrender of fugitives applied only to persons held
to service in the original states.^
1 See Chap. II, pp. 28, 32. 2 2 Western Law Journal, 279-293.
' 3 Western Law Journal, 65-71 ; also, 3 McLean^s Reports, 530-538.
* 5 Howard'' s Reports, 215 et seq.
^ 2 Western Law Journal, 281, 283 ; 3 McLean, 530.
LAW OF 1793 VESSUS OKDINANCE OF 1787 263
The opinions given by tlie courts in the cases under con-
sideration failed to support the idea of the irreconcilability-
existing between the law of 1793 and the Ordinance. The
Supreme Court of Ohio declared that under the federal Con-
stitution the right of recaption of fugitive slaves was secured
to the new states to the same extent that it belonged to the
original states.^ The Circuit Court of the United States
took virtually the same stand by pointing out that a state
carved from the Northwest Territory assumed the same con-
stitutional obligations by entering the Union that the origi-
nal thirteen states had earlier assumed, and that where a
conflict occurred the Constitution was paramount to the
Ordinance.^ Finally, the Supreme Court at Washington
declared that the clause in the Ordinance prohibiting sla-
very applied only to people living within the borders of the
Northwest Territory, and that it did not impair the rights
of those living in states outside of this domain. Whereso-
ever the Ordinance existed the states preserved their own
laws, as well as the Ordinance, by forbidding slavery ; the
provision of the Constitution and the act of Congress look-
ing toward the delivery of fugitive slaves did not interfere
with the laws of the free states as to their own subjects.
The court therefore held that there was no repugnance
between the act and the Ordinance.^
Among the various objections raised in the court-room
against the law of 1793, the denial of the power of Congress
to legislate on the subject of fugitive slaves was one that
should not be overlooked. It commanded the attention of
the bench in at least two important cases, both of which
have been mentioned in other connections, namely, Peter,
alias Lewis Martin (1837), and State vs. Hoppess (1845).
In both of these cases the denial of legislative authority was
based upon the doctrine that there had been no delegation
of the necessary power to Congress by the Constitution.
The fugitive slave clause in the Constitution, it was said in
the report of the second case, prepared by Mr. Chase,
1 2 Western Law Journal, 288.
2 3 McLean's Beports, 532 ; 3 Western Law Journal, 65.
» 5 Howard's Reports, 230, 231.
264 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
granted no power at all to Congress, but was "a mere
clause of compact imposing a duty on the states to be ful-
filled, if at all, by state legislation." ^ However prevalent
this view may have been in the Northern states, — and the
number of state laws dealing with the subject of fugitive
slaves indicates that it predominated, — neither the Circuit
Court of the United States for the Southern District of New
York in the earlier case, nor the Supreme Court of Ohio in
the later, were willing to subscribe to the doctrine. On the
contrary, both asserted the power of Congress to pass laws
for the restoration of runaway slaves, on the ground that
the creation of a duty or a right by the Constitution is the
warrant under which Congress necessarily acts in making
the laws needful to enforce the duty or secure the right.^
The outcome of the judicial examination in the high
courts of the various points thus far considered was wholly
favorable to the constitutionality of the law of 1793. The
one case within the category of great cases in which that
law was decided to be unconstitutional in any particular
was that of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania. By the law of
1793 state and local authorities were empowered to take
cognizance of fugitive slave cases together with judges hold-
ing their appointments from the federal government.^ In
the hearing given the case before the Supreme Court at
Washington, in 1842, Mr. Johnson, the attorney-general of
Pennsylvania, cited former decisions of the Supreme Court
to show that in so far as the congressional law vested juris-
diction in state officers it was unconstitutional and void.^
The court's answer was momentous and far-reaching.
While the law was declared to be constitutional in its essen-
tial features, it was asserted that it did not point out any
state functionaries, or any state actions, to carry its provi-
sions into effect. The states could not, therefore, so the
court decided, be compelled to enforce them ; and any in-
sistence that the states were bound to provide means for the
1 2 Paine's Heports, 354 ; 2 Western Law Journal, 282.
' 2 Paine^s Beports, 354, 355 ; also, 2 Western Law Journal, 289.
' See Section 3 of the act, Statutes at Large, I, 302-305.
* 16 Peters' Beports, 598.
EFFECT OF DECISION IN PRIGG CASE 265
performance of the duties of the national government, no-
where delegated or entrusted to them by the Constitution,
would bear the appearance of an unconstitutional exercise
of the interpretative power, i As the decision in the Prigg
case carried the weight of great authority, and became a
precedent for all future judgments,^ the relief it afforded
state officers from distasteful functions was soon accepted
by many states, and they enacted laws forbidding their
magistrates to issue warrants for the arrest or removal of
fugitive slaves.^ In consequence of this manifest disincli-
nation on the part of the Northern states to restore to
Southern masters their escaped slaves, the federal govern-
ment was induced to make more effective provision for the
execution of the Constitution in this particular. Such pro-
vision was embodied in the second Fugitive Slave Law,
passed as a part of the Compromise of 1850.
That the new law was not intended to extinguish the old
is apparent from the title assigned it, which read : " An Act
to amend, and supplementary to, the Act entitled ' An Act
respecting Fugitives from Justice, and Persons escaping
from the service of their Masters, . . ."* Its evident pur-
pose was to increase the facilities and improve the means
for the recovery of fugitives from, labor. To this end it
created commissioners, who were to have authority, like
the judges of the circuit and district courts of the United
States, to issue warrants for the apprehension of runaway
slaves, and to grant certificates for the removal of such per-
sons back to the state or territory whence they had escaped.
All cases were to be heard in a summary manner ; the testi-
mony of the alleged fugitive could not be received in evi-
dence ; and the fee of the commissioner or judge was to be
ten dollars when the decision was in favor of the claimant,
but only five dollars when it was unfavorable. The penalties
created by the new law were more rigorous than those
1 16 Peters' Beports, 608, 622. See also Marion G. McDougall's Fugitive
Slaves, pp. 108, 109.
" M. G. McDougall's Fugitive Slaves, p. 28.
s See Chap. IX, pp. 245, 246, and Chap. X, p. 337.
* Statutes at Large, IX, 462.
266 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
imposed by the old. A fine not to exceed a thousand dollars
and imprisonment not to exceed six months constituted the
punishment for harboring a runaway or aiding in his rescue,
and the party injured could bring suit for civil damages
against the offender in the sum of one thousand dollars for
each fugitive lost through his interference. If the claimant
apprehended a rescue, the officer making the arrest could
be required to retain the fugitive in his custody for the pur-
pose of removing him to the state whence he had fled. The
refusal of the officer to obey and execute the warrants and
precepts issued under the provisions of the law laid him
liable to a fine of a thousand dollars for the benefit of the
claimant ; and the escape of a, fugitive from his custody,
whether with his assent or without it, made him liable to a
prosecution for the full value of the labor of the negro thus
lost. Ample security from such disaster was intended to be
provided for the marshal and his deputies by the clause
authorizing them to summon to their aid the bystanders, or
posse comitatus, when necessary, and aU good citizens were
commanded to respond promptly with their assistance. In
removing a fugitive back to the state from which he had
escaped, when an attempt at rescue was feared, the marshal
in charge was commanded to employ as many persons as he
deemed necessary to resist the interference. The omission
of the new law to mention any officers appointed by the
states is doubtless traceable, as is the clause establishing
commissionerships, to the ruling in the decision of Prigg's
case that state officers could not be forced to execute federal
legislation.
It will be remembered that the decision in the Prigg case
also contained a ruling that acknowledged the right of the
claimant to seize and remove the alleged fugitive, whereso-
ever found, without judicial process. It has been suggested
recently that this part of the decision, denominated the
most obnoxious part, was avoided in the law of 1850. ^ But
the language of the new law no more denied this right than
1 Henry W. Rogers, Editor, Constitutional History of the United States as
seen in the Development of American Law, Lecture III, by George W. Biddle,
p. 152.
OBJECTIONABLE FEATURES OF LAW OF 1850 267
the language of the old bestowed it. In both cases equally
the claimant seems to have enjoyed the right of private
seizure and arrest -without process, but for the purpose of
taking the supposed fugitive before the proper official. ^ So
far as the language of the statute was concerned the Prigg
decision was quite as possible under the later as under the
earlier law. It was the language of the Constitution upon
which this part of the famous decision was made to rest, and
that, it needs scarcely be said, continued un.changed during
the period with which we are concerned.
It is not to be supposed, of course, that the law of 1850
was found to be intrinsically less objectionable to abolitionists
than the measure it was intended to supplement. On the
contrary, it soon proved to be decidedly more objectionable.
The features of the first Slave Act that were obnoxious to the
Northern people, and had been subjected to examination in
the courts, were retained in the second act, where they were
associated with a number of new features of such a character
that they soon brought the new law into the greatest con-
tempt. While, therefore, the records of the trials of the
chief cases arising under the later law are found to contain
arguments borrowed from the contentions made in the cases
1 Section 3 of the law of 1793 provided that "the person to whom such
labour or service may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to
seize and arrest such fugitive from labour, and to take him or her before any
judge of the circuit or district courts of the United States, . . . within the
state, or before any magistrate of a county (etc. ) . . . wherein such seizure
. . . shall be made, and upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magis-
trate ... it shall be the duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate
thereof . . . which shall be a sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive
... to the state or territory from which he or she fled. ' '
Section 6 of the act of 1850 provides that "the person or persons to
whom such service or labour may be due, or his, her, or their agent or attorney
. . may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a war-
rant ... or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be
done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken,
forthwith before such court, judge or commissioner, whose duty it shall be
to hear and determine the case ... in a summary manner ; and upon satis-
factory proof ... to make out and deliver to such claimant, his or her agent
or attorney, a certificate . . . with authority . . to use such reasonable
force ... as may be necessary ... to take and remove such fugitive per-
son back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped as
aforesaid."
268 TINDERGROUND KAILKOAD
already discussed, it is interesting to note that they afford
proof that new arguments were also brought to bear against
the act of 1850. As with the first Fugitive Slave Law, so
also with its successor, fault was found on account of the
absence of any provision for jury trial ; ^ the authority of a
claimant or his agent to arrest without legal process ; ^ the
opposition alleged to exist between the law and the Ordinance
of 1787; 2 and the power said to be inaproperly exercised by
Congress in legislating upon the subject of fugitive slaves.*
It is unnecessary to introduce here a study of these points
as they presented themselves in the various cases arising,
for a discussion of them would lead to no principles of im-
portance other than those discovered in the cases already
examined.^
In some of the cases that were tried under the act of 1850,
however, new questions appeared ; and in some, where the
questions were perhaps without novelty, the circumstances
were such that the cases cannot well be passed over in silence.
If, as was freely declared by the abolitionists, it was possi-
ble for free negroes to be abducted from the Northern states
under the form of procedure laid down by the act of 1793,
there can be little reason to doubt that the same thing was
equally possible under the procedure established by the act
1 Sims' case, tried before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,
March term, 1851. See 7 Oushing''s Beports, 310.
Miller vs. McQuerry, tried before the Circuit Court of the United States,
in Ohio, 1853. See 5 McLean's Beports, 481-484.
Ex parte Simeon Bushnell, etc., tried before the Supreme Court of Ohio,
May, 1859. See 9 Ohio State Beports, 170.
2 Norris vs. Newton et al., tried before the Circuit Court of the United
States, in Indiana, May term, 1850. See 5 McLean's Beports, 98.
Ex parte Simeon Bushnell, etc. See 9 Ohio State Beports, 174.
United States vs. Buck, tried before the District Court of the United
States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1860. See 8 American Law
Begister, 543.
8 Booth's case, tried before the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, June term,
1854. See 3 Wisconsin Beports, 3.
Ex parte Simeon Bushnell, and ex parte Charles Langston, tried before
the Supreme Court of Ohio, May, 1859. See 9 Ohio State Beports, 111, 114-
117, 124, 186.
* Sims' case See 7 Cushing's Beports, 290. Booth's case. See 3 Wis-
consin Beports.
6 Tor the text of the Slave Laws, see Appendix A, pp. 359-366.
POWER OF COMMISSIONERS QUESTIONED 269
of 1850. Certain it is that the anti-slavery people were
not dubious on this point, but they had scarcely had time to
formulate their criticisms of the new law when the first case
under it of which there is any record demonstrated the ease
with which this legislation could be taken advantage of in
the commission of a foul injustice. The case occurred Sep-
tember 26, only eight days after the passage of the act.
A free negro, James Hamlet, then living in New York, was
arrested as the slave of Mary Brown, of Baltimore. The
hearing took place before a United States commissioner and
the negro's removal followed at once. The community in
which Hamlet was living was greatly incensed when the facts
concerning his disappearance became known, and the sum of
money necessary for his redemption was quickly contributed.
Before a fortnight had elapsed he was brought back from
slavery. 1
The summary manner in which this case was disposed of
had prevented a defence being made in behalf of the sup-
posed fugitive. In the next case, however, that of Thomas
Sims, which was tried before the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts in 1851, the negro was represented by compe-
tent counsel, who brought forward objections against the
second Fugitive Slave Law. Almost the first of these was
directed against the power of the special officers, the com-
missioners, created by the new law. It was insisted that the
authority with which these officers were invested was dis-
tinctly judicial in character, despite the constitutional pro-
vision limiting the exercise of the judicial power of the
United States to organized courts of justice, composed of
judges, holding their offices during good behavior, and re-
ceiving fixed salaries for their services.^ The same argu-
ment seems to have been adduced in Scott's case, tried before
the District Court of the United States in Massachusetts in
1851 ; in the case of Miller vs. McQuerry, tried before the
1 Marion G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 43 and 44, witli the refer-
ences there given ; Wilson, Eise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. II,
pp. 304, 305. See Appendix B, p. 372.
2 7 Cushing's Beports, 287. The constitutional requirement will he found
in Article III, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.
2.70 TJNDBEGROUND RAILROAD
Circuit Court of the United States in Ohio in 1853 ;i in
Booth's case, argued in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin
in 1854; 2 in the case known as ex parte Robinson, adjudicated
by the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern
District of Ohio at its April term, 1855; ^ and in the case ex
parte Simeon Bushnell, argued and determined in the Su-
preme Court of Ohio in 1859.* The court met this argu-
ment by a direct answer in four of the cases mentioned,
namely, those of Sims, Scott, Booth and ex parte Robinson.
In the first, Sims' case. Chief Justice Shaw pointed out
that under the Slave Law of 1793 the jurisdiction over fugi-
tive slave cases had been conferred on justices of the peace
and magistrates of cities and towns corporate, as well as on
judges of the United States circuit and district courts, and
that evidently, therefore, the power bestowed had not been
deemed judicial in the sense in which it was urged that the
functions of the commissioners were judicial. At the same
time the judge admitted that the " argument from the limita-
tion of judicial power would be entitled to very grave consider-
ation " if it were without the support of early construction,
judicial precedent and the acquiescence of the general and-
state governments. In the trial of James Scott, on the
charge of aiding in the rescue of Shadrach (May or June,
1851), Judge Sprague, of the United States District Court,
held that the legal force of the certificate issued by a com-
missioner lay merely in the authority it conveyed to remove
the person designated from one state to another, and that
the disposition made of the person removed depended solely
upon the laws of the state to which he was taken. The facts
set down in the certificate were not, therefore, to be considered
as matters judicially established, but as facts only in the
opinion of the commissioner. In Booth's case, the opinion
of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin contained a reference to
the legality of the power of the commissioners and sustained
the objection to their authority on the ground of unconstitu-
tionality.^ In ex parte Robinson, Judge McLean admitted
1 5 McLean's Seports, 481. 9 Ohio State Beports, 176.
'^ 3 Wisconsin Beports, 39. 3 Wisconsin Beports, 64.
" 6 McLean^s Beports, 359.
EEMUNERATION OF COMMISSIONERS 271
that the inquiry made by the commissioner was "some-
what in the nature of judicial power," but that the same
remark applied to all the officers of the accounting depart-
ments of the government, as, for example, the examiners in
the Patent Office. He also remarked that the Supreme
Court had always treated the acts of the commissioners, in
the cases that had come before it, as possessed of authority
under the law.^
The uncertainty as to the precise character of the com-
missioners' power displayed in the different views of the
courts before which the question was brought marks the
observations of the commissioners themselves in regard to
their authority. Examples will be found in Sims' and
Burns' cases. In the former, Mr. George T. Curtis de-
clared that claims for fugitive slaves came within the judi-
cial power of the federal government, and that, consequently,
the mode and means of the application of this power to the
cases arising were properly to be determined by Congress.
In the latter, Mr. Edward G. Loring asserted that his action
• was not judicial at all, but only ministerial.
-* An additional ground of objection to the commissioners
was found in the provision made in the law of 1850 for their
remuneration. When one of these officers issued a certifi-
cate authorizing the removal of a runaway to the state
whence he had escaped, he was legally entitled to a fee of
ten dollars ; when, however, he withheld the warrant he
could receive but five dollars. Abolitionists took much
offence at this arrangement, and sometimes scornfully de-
nominated the special appointees under the law the " ten-
dollar commissioners," and insisted that the difference
between the fees was in the nature of a bribe held out to
the officers to induce them to decide in favor of the claimant.
Considering the prevalence of this feeling outside of the
courts, it is not surprising that objections to the section of
the act regulating the fees of commissioners should have been
taken within the court-room.^ Such objection was raised
ia McQuerry's case, and was answered by Judge McLean.
1 6 McLean's Beports, 359, 360.
2 Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, Vol. II, p. 747.
272 UNDEEGROUND RAILROAD
This answer is probably tbe only one judicially declared,
and is worth quoting: "In regard to the five dollars, in
addition, paid to the commissioner, where the fugitive is
remanded to the claimant," the judge explained, "in all
fairness it cannot be considered as a bribe, or as so intended
by Congress ; but as a compensation to the commissioner
for making a statement of the case, which includes the facts
proved, and to which the certificate is annexed. In cases
where the witnesses are numerous and the investigation
takes up several days, five dollars would scarcely be a com-
pensation for the statement required. Where the fugitive
is discharged, no statement is necessary." ^
JXh^ foes paid te--CQmmissionersjwfire»^S-in.dicated in the
remarks just quoted, by way of remuneration for services
rendered in inquiries relative to the rights of ownership of
negroes alleged to have escaped from the South. These
inquiries, together with similar inquiries that arose under
the act of 1793, constitute a group by themselves. Another
group is made up of the cases growing out of the prosecution
under the two acts of persons charged with harboring fugi-
tive slaves, or aiding in their rescue. The secrecy observed
by abolitionists in giving assistance to escaping bondmen
shows that the evils threatening, if a discovery occurred,
were constantly kept in mind. After the passage of the
second act, public denunciation of the measure was indulged
in freely, and open resistance to its provisions, whether
these should be considered constitutional or not, was recom-
mended in some quarters. Such remonstrances seem to
have early disturbed the judicial repose of the courts, for,
six months after the new Fugitive Slave Bill had become a
law. Justice Nelson found occasion in the course of a charge
to the grand jury of the Circuit Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York to deliver a speech
on sectional issues in which he gave an exposition of the
new law, " so that those, if any there be, who have made up
their minds to disobey it, may be fuUy apprised of the con-
sequences." ^ The severer penalties of the law of 1850 had
1 5 McLean's Seports, 481.
* 1 Blatchford'' s Circuit Court Beports, 636.
PENALTIES FOR AIDING FUGITIVES 273
no deterrent effect upon those who were determined to resist
its enforcement. The fervor displayed in harboring runa-
ways increased rather than diminished throughout the free
states, and the spirit of resistance thus fostered broke out
in daring and sometimes successful attempts at rescue.
Through the activity of slave-owners in seeking the recov-
ery of their lost property, and the support afforded them by
the government in the strict enforcement of the new law, a
number of offenders were brought to trial and subjected to
punishments inflicted under its provisions.
Among the prosecutions arising under the two congres-
sional acts the following cases are offered as typical. The
number has been limited by choosing in general from among
such as came before supreme courts of the states, or before
circuit and district courts of the United States.
One of the earliest cases of which we have record was
brought before the Circuit Court of the United States for
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on writ of error, in
1822. The action was for the penalty under the law of
1793 for obstructing the plaintiff, a citizen of Maryland, in
seizing his escaped slave in Philadelphia for the purpose of
taking him before a magistrate there to prove property.
The trial in the United States District Court had termi-
nated in a verdict of $500 for the slave-owner. Judge
Washington, of the Circuit Court, decided, however, that
there was an error in the judgment of the lower court, that
the judgment must be reversed with costs, and the cause
remitted to the District Court in order that a new trial
might be had. This case is known in the law books as the
case of Hill vs. Low.^
Occasionally an attempt at rescue ended in the arrest and
imprisonment of the slave-catchers, as well as the release of
the captured negro. When a party of rescuers went to
such a length as here indicated it laid itself liable to an
action for damages on the ground of false imprisonment, as
well as to prosecution for the penalty under the Fugitive
Slave Law. This is illustrated in the case of Johnson vs.
1 4 Washington's Circuit Court Reports, 327-331.
274 TOIDERGROUND RAILEOAD
TomkiDS, a case belonging to the year 1833.^ It was the out-
growth of the attempt of a master to reclaim his slave from
the premises of a Quaker, John Kenderdine, of Montgomery
County, Pennsylvania. Before the slave-owner could re-
turn to New Jersey, the state of his domicile, he and his
party were overtaken, and after violent handling in which
the master was injured, they were taken into custody, and
were forthwith prosecuted. The trial ended in the acquittal
of the company from New Jersey, whose seizure of the
negro was found to be justifiable. Then followed the pros-
ecution of some of the Pennsylvania party for trespass and
false imprisonment, before the Circuit Court of the United
States. The fact that the defendants were all Quakers was
noted by the judge, who found it " hard to imagine " the
motives by which these persons, " members of a society dis-
tinguished for their obedience and submission to the laws "
were actuated. The question of damages was left exclu-
sively to the jury. The verdict rendered was for 14,000,
and the court gave judgment on the verdict.^
The law of 1793 provided a double penalty for those
guilty of transgressing its provisions : first, the forfeiture
of a sum of 1500 to be recovered for the benefit of
the claimant by action of debt ; secondly, the payment
of such damages as might be awarded by the court in an
action brought by the slave-owner on account of the injuries
sustained through the loss, or even the temporary absence,
of his property. In the famous case of Jones vs. Van Zandt,
which was pending before the United States courts, in Ohio
and at Washington, for five years, from 1842 to 1847, the
defendant was compelled to pay both penalties. In April,
1842, Mr. Van Zandt, an anti-slavery Kentuckian, who had
settled at Springdale, a few miles north of Cincinnati, Ohio,
was caught in the act of conveying a company of nine fugi-
tives in his market-wagon at daybreak one morning, and,
notwithstanding the efforts of the slave-catchers, one of the
negroes escaped. The trial was held before the United
States Circuit Court at its July term, 1843. The jury gave
1 4 Baldwin's Circuit Court Reports, 571-605.
" Washington's Circuit Court Reports, 327-331.
PENALTIES FOR AIDING FUGITIVES 275
a verdict for the claimant of $1,200 in damages on two
counts.^ Besides the suit for damages, an action was
brought against Van Zandt for the penalty of $500. In this
action, as in the other, the verdict was for Jones, the plain-
tiff. The matter did not end here, however, and was carried
on a certificate of division in opinion between the judges to
the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision of
this court was also adverse to Van Zandt, and final judg-
ment was entered against him for both amounts. This
settlement was reached at the January term in 1847.^
The successful rescue of a large company of slaves was
Ukely to make the adventure a very expensive one for the
responsible persons that took part in it. Such was the ex-
perience of the defendants in the case of Giltner vs. Gorham
and others, determined in 1847. Six slaves, the chattels of
Mr. Giltner, a citizen of Carroll County, Kentucky, were
discovered and arrested in Marshall, Michigan, by the
agents of the claimant, but through the intervention of the
defendants were set at liberty. Action was brought to re-
cover the value of the negroes, who were estimated to be
worth $2,752. In the first trial the jury failed to agree. At
the succeeding term of court, however, a verdict for the
value of the slaves was found for the plaintiff. ^
The value of four negroes was involved in the case
of Norris vs. Newton and others. These negroes were
found in September, 1849, after two years' absence from
Kentucky, living in Cass County, Michigan. Here they had
taken refuge among abolitionists and people of their own
color. They were at once seized by their pursuers and con-
veyed across the line into Indiana, but had not been taken far
when their progress was stopped by an excited crowd with a
sherifif at its head. The officer had a writ of habeas corpus,
and the temper of the crowd would admit of no delay in
securing a hearing for the fugitives. The court-house at
South Bend, whither the captives were now taken, was at
1 2 McLean's Beports, 612.
^5 Boward's Reports, 215-232; see also Schuckers, Life and Public
Services of S. P. Chase, 63-66 ; Wajden, Private Life and Public Services
of S. P. Chase, 296-298 . ' 4 McLean's Beports, 402-426.
276 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
once crowded with spectators, and the streets around it filled
with the overflow. The negroes were released by the de-
cision of the judge, but were rearrested and placed in jail
for safe-keeping. On the following day warrants were
sworn out against several members of the Kentucky party,
charging them with riot and other breaches of the peace,
and civil process was begun against Mr. Norris, the owner
of the slaves, claiming large damages in their behalf.
Meanwhile companies of colored people, some of whom had
firearms and others clubs, came tramping into the village
from Cass County and the intermediate country. Fortu-
nately a demonstration by these incensed bands was some-
how avoided. Two days later the fugitives were released
from custody on a second writ of habeas corpus, and, attended
by a great bodyguard of colored persons, were triumphantly
carried away in a wagon. The slave-owner, the charges
against whom were dropped, had declined to attend the last
hearing accorded his slaves, declaring that his rights had
been violated, and that he would claim compensation under
the law. Suit was accordingly brought in the Circuit Court
of the United States in 1850, and the sum of $2,850 was
awarded as damages to the plaintiff.^
Another case in which large damages were at stake was
that of Oliver vs. Weakley and others, tried in the United
States Circuit Court for the Western District of Pennsyl-
vania, in October term, 1853. It was alleged and proved
that Mr. Weakley, one of the defendants, had given shelter
in his barn to several slaves of the plaintiff, who was a
citizen of Maryland. The jury failed to agree on the first
trial. A second trial was therefore held, and this time a
verdict was reached ; one of the defendants was found
guilty, and damages to the amount of f 2,800 were assessed
upon him ; the other defendants were declared "not guilty. "^
The dismissal without proper authority of seven fugitives
from the custody of their captors at Sandusky, Ohio, by
Mr. Eush R. Sloane, a lawyer of that city, led to the institu-
tion of two suits against him by Mr. L. F. Weimer, the
claimant of three of the slaves. The suits were tried before
1 5 McLean's Jteports, 92-106. " 2 Wallace Jr.'s Seports, 324-326.
PENALTIES FOR AIDING FUGITIVES 277
the District Court of tte United States at Columbus, Ohio,
in 1854, and a verdict for 13,000 and costs was returned in
favor of the slaveholder. The costs amounted to §330. 30,
and the defendant had also to pay f 1,000 in attorneys' fees.
Some friends of Mr. Sloane in Sandusky formed a committee
and collected $393, an amount sufficient to pay the court and
marshal's costs, but the judgment and the other expenses
were borne by the defendant individually.^
The burden of the penalty, of which, as we have just seen,
a small fraction was assumed by sympathizers with the
offender in the case of Mr. Sloane, was altogether removed
by friendly contributors in the case of another citizen of
Sandusky. Two negroes from Kentucky, who were being
cared for at the house of iSIr. F. D. Parish, were protected
from arrest by their benefactor in February, 1845. As
Parish was a fearless agent of the Underground Road, the
fugitives were not seen afterwards in northern Ohio. The
result was that Parish was required to undergo three trials,
and in the last, in 1849, the Circuit Court of the United
States for the District of Ohio fined him f 500, the estimated
value of the slaves at the time. This sum, together with the
costs and expenses, amounting to as much more, was paid by
friends of Mr. Parish, who made up the necessary amount by
subscriptions of one dollar each.^
1 6 McLean's JSeports, 259-273. Mr. Sloane's account of the case wiU be
found in The Firelands Pioneer for July, 1888, pp. 46-49. A copy of the
certificate of the clerk of court there given is here reproduced : —
"Louis F. Weimer vs. Rush R. Sloane. United States District of Ohio,
in deht.
October Teem, 1854.
Judgment for Plaintifi for §3000 and costs.
Received July 8th, 1856, of Rush R. Sloane, the above Defendant, a receipt
of Louis F. Weimer, the above Plaintiff, bearing date Dec. 14th, 1854, for
§3000, acknowledging fuU satisfaction of the above judgment, except the
costs ; also a receipt of L. F. Weimer, Sr., per Joseph Doniphan, attorney,
for $85, the amount of Plaintiff's vritness fees in said case ; also certificates
of Defendant's witnesses in above case for $162 ; also #20 in money, the
attorney's docket fees attached, which, with the clerk and marshal's fees
heretofore paid, is in full of the costs in said case.
(Signed) William Miner, CTeri."
5 For the first trial (1845), see 3 McLean's Meports, 631 ; s. c. 5 Western
Law Journal, 25 ; 7 Federal Cases, 1100 ; for the second trial (1847), see
278 UNDEEGEOUND EAILEOAD
It will have been noticed that the Van Zandt and Parish
cases were in litigation for about five years each. A famous
Illinois case, that of Dr. Richard Eells, occupied the attention
of the courts and of the public more or less during an entire
decade. The incidents that gave rise to this case occurred
in Adams County, Illinois, in 1842. In that year Mr. Eells
was indicted for secreting a slave owing service to Chauncey
Durkee, of Missouri, and was convicted and sentenced to pay
a fine of $400 and the costs of the prosecution. The case
was taken on writ of error first to the Supreme Court of the
state, and after the death of Mr. EeUs to the Supreme
Court of the United States. In both instances the judg-
ment of the original tribunal was confirmed. The decision
of the federal court was reached at its December term for
1852.1
It was sometimes made clear in the courts that the defend-
ants in cases arising under the Fugitive Slave laws were per-
sons in the habit of evading the requirements of these laws.
This is true of the case of Ray vs. Donnell and Hamilton,
which was tried before the United States Circuit Court in
Indiana, at the May term, 1849. A slave woman, Caroline,
and her four children fled from Kemble County, Kentucky,
and found shelter in a barn near Clarksburg, Indiana.
Here they were discovered by Woodson Clark, a farmer
living in the neighborhood, who took measures immediately
to inform their master, while the slaves were removed to
a fodder-house for safe-keeping. In some way Messrs.
Donnell and Hamilton learned of the capture of the negroes
by Mr. Clark, and secured a writ of habeas corpus in their
behalf ; but, if the testimony of Mr. Clark's son, supported
by certain circumstantial evidence, is to be credited, the
blacks were released from custody by the personal efforts of
the defendants, and not by legal process. Considerable evi-
dence conflicting with that just mentioned appears to have
10 Law Reporter, 395 ; s. c. 5 Western Law Journal, 206 ; 7 Federal Cases,
1093 ; for the third trial (1849), see 5 McLean's Reports, 64 ; ». c. 7 Western
Law Journal, 222 ; 7 Federal Cases, 1095. See also The Firelands Pioneer,
July, 1888, pp. 41,42.
1 5 Illinois Reports, 498-618 ; 14 Howard's Reports, 13, 14.
PENALTIES FOK ArDING FUGITIVES 279
had little weight with the jury, for it gave a verdict for the
claimant and assessed his damages at $1,500.^
In the trial of ^Mitchell, an abolitionist of the town of
Indiana, Pennsylvania, in 1853, for harboring two fugitives,
some of the evidence was intended to show that he was con-
nected with a "regularly organized association," the business
of which was "to entice negroes from their owners, and to
aid them in escaping to the North." The slaves he was
charged with harboring had been given employment on his
farm in the country, where, as it was thought, they would
be secure. After remaining about four months they were
apprised of danger and escaped. Justice Grier charged the
jury to " let no morbid sympathy, no false respect for pre-
tended 'rights of conscience,' prevent it from judging the
defendant justly." A verdict of fSOO was found for the
plaintifE.*
Penalties for hindering the arrest of a fugitive slave were
imposed in two other noted cases, which deserve mention
here, although they are considered at length in another con-
nection. One of these was Booth's case, with which the
Supreme Court of Wisconsin, and the District and Supreme
Courts of the United States dealt between the years 1855 and
1858. The sentence pronounced against Mr. Booth included
imprisonment for one month and a fine of $1,000 and costs
— 11,451 in all. 3 The other case was what is commonly
known as the Oberlin- Wellington case, tried in the United
States District Court at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1858 and 1859.
Only two out of the thirty-seven men indicted were con-
victed, and the sentences imposed were comparatively light.
Mr. Bushnell was sentenced to pay a fine of §600 and costs
and to be imprisoned in the county jail for sixty days, while
the sentence of the colored man, Langston, was a fine of
1100 and costs and imprisonment for twenty days.
In all of the cases thus far considered the charges upon
which the transgressors of the Fugitive Slave laws were
* 4 McLean's Seports, 504-515.
" 2 Wallace Jr.'s Beports, 313, 317-323.
» 21 Howard'' s Beports, 510 ; The Fugitive Slave Law in Wisconsin, with
Reference to Nullification Sentiment, by VromaJi Mason, p. 134.
280 UNDERaKOUND KAILEOAD
prosecuted were, in general terms, harboring and concealing
runaways, obstructing their arrest, or aiding in their rescue.
There was, however, one case in which the crime alleged in
the indictment was much more serious, being nothing less
than treason against the United States. This was the fa-
mous Christiana case, marked not only by the nature of the
indictment, but by the organized resistance to arrest made
by the slaves and their friends, and by the violent death of
one of the attacking party. The frequent abduction of
negroes from the neighborhood of Christiana, in southeast-
ern Pennsylvania, seems to have given occasion for the
formation, about 1851, of a league for self-protection among
the many colored persons living in that region.^ The lead-
ing spirit in this association was William Parker, a fugitive
slave whose house was a refuge for other runaways. On
September 10, Parker and his neighbors received word from
the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia that Gorsuch, a
slaveholder of Maryland, had procured warrants for the
arrest of two of his slaves, known to be staying at Parker's
house. When, therefore, Gorsuch with his son and some
friends appeared upon the scene about daybreak on the
morning of the 11th, and, having broken into the house,
demanded the fugitives, the negroes lost little time in sound-
ing a horn from one of the upper-story windows to summon
their friends. From fifty to one hundred men, armed with
guns, clubs and corn-cutters, soon came up. Castner Han-
way and Elijah Lewis, two Quakers, who had been drawn
to the place by the disturbance, declined to join the mar-
shal's posse and help arrest the slaves ; but they advised the
negroes against resisting the law, and warned Gorsuch and
his party to depart if they would prevent bloodshed. Neither
side would yield, and a fight was soon in progress. In the
course of the conflict the slave-owner was killed, his son
severely wounded, and the fugitives managed to escape.
The excitement caused by this affair extended throughout
the country. The President of the United States placed a
company of forty-five marines at the disposal of the United
I Smedley, Underground Railroad, pp. 107, 108 ; 2 Wallace Jr.'s BeporU,
159.
CHRISTIANA CASE, 1854 281
States marshal, and these proceeded under orders to the
place of the riot. A large number of police and special
constables made search far and wide for those concerned in
the rescue. Their efforts were rewarded with the arrest of
thirty-five negroes and three Quakers, among the latter Han-
way and Lewis, who gave themselves up. The prisoners
were taken to Philadelphia and indicted by the grand jury
for treason. Hanway was tried before the Circuit Court
of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsyl-
vania in November and December, 1851. In the trial it
was shown by the defence that Mr. Hanway was a native
of a Southern state, had lived long in the South, and, during
his three years' residence in Pennsylvania, had kept aloof
from anti-slavery organizations and meetings ; his presence
at the riot was proved to be accidental. Under these cir-
cumstances the charge of Justice Grier to the jury was a
demonstration of the unsoundness of the indictment : the
judge asked the jury to observe that a conspiracy to be
classed as an act of treason must have been for the purpose
of effecting something of a public nature ; and that the ef-
forts of a band of fugitive slaves in opposition to the capture
of any of their number, even though they were directed by
friends and went the full length of committing murder upon
their pursuers, was altogether for a private object, and could
not be called " levying war " against the nation. It did not
take the jury long to decide the case. After an absence of
twenty minutes the verdict " not guilty " was returned. One
of the negroes was also tried, but not convicted. Afterward
a bill was brought against Hanway and Lewis for riot and
murder, but the grand jury ignored it, and further prosecu-
tion was dropped.^
One cannot examine the records of the various cases that
have been passed in review in the preceding pages of this
chapter without being struck in many instances by the char-
acter of the men that served as counsel for fugitive slaves and
1 StiU's Underground Bailroad Seeords, pp. 348-368 ; Smedley, Under-
ground Bailroad, pp. 107-130; 2 Wallace Jr.'s Reports, pp. 134-206;
M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 50, 51 ; "Wilson, Rise and Fall of the
Slave Power, Vol. H, pp. 328, 329.
282 UNDEEGROXIND RAILROAD
their friends. It not infrequently happens that one comes
upon the name of a man whose principles, ability and elo-
quence won for him in later years positions of distinction and
influence at the bar and in public life. In the Christiana
case, for example, Thaddeus Stevens was a prominent figure ;
in the Van Zandt case Salmon P. Chase and William H.
Seward presented the arguments against the Fugitive Slave
Law before the United States Supreme Court ;i Mr. Chase
also appeared in Eells' case, and in the case known as ex 'parte
Robinson, besides others of less judicial importance. Ruth-
erford B. Hayes took part in a number of fugitive slave cases
in Cincinnati, Ohio. A letter written by the ex-President
in 1892 says: "As a young lawyer, from the passage of the
Fugitive Slave Law until the war, I was engaged in slave cases
for the fugitives, having an understanding with Levi Coffin
and other directors and officers of the U. R. R. that my
services \^ould be freely given." ^ John JoUiffe, another
lawyer of Cincinnati, less known than the anti-slavery advo-
cates already mentioned, was sometimes associated with Chase
and Hayes in pleading the cause of fugitives.^ The "West-
ern Reserve was not without its members of the bar that
were ready to display their legal talent in a movement well
grounded in the popular mind of eastern Ohio. An illustra-
tion is afforded by the trial of the Oberlin-Wellington res-
cuers, when four eminent attorneys of Cleveland offered their
services for the defence, declining at the same time to accept
a fee. The event shows that the political aspirations of these
men were not injured by their procedure, for Mr. Albert G.
Riddle, who spoke first for the defence, was elected to Con-
gress from the Cleveland district the following year, and
Mr. Rufus P. Spalding, one of his associates, was similarly
honored by the same district in 1862.* In November, 1852,
the legal firm of William H. West and James Walker, of
Belief ontaine, Ohio, attempted to release from custody several
1 Wilson, 'Rise, and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. I, p. 477.
2 Letter of Mr. Hayes, Fremont, 0., Aug. 4, 1892.
' Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, pp. 548, 549.
* Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 11, p. 364. The others repre-
senting the rescuers were Franklin T. Backus and Seneca O. Griswold. See
J. R. Shipherd's History of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, p. 14.
^ :
.^Sl '•*•
1^
Ji"'-»
Ik^
'1
i
i
nk.
i
1
1
i^M
m
p
T*^'^
RUSH R. SLOANE,
OF Sandusky, Ohio,
fined $3000 and costs for assisting run-
aways to Canada.
THADDEUS STEVENS, JI.C,
who befriended fugitives in soutlieastern
Pennsylvania, and appeared for them
in court.
J. R. WARE,
OF ilECHANICSB0RG, OHIO,
a Station-keeper, in a centre receiving fu-
gitives from several converging routes.
Ex-President R. B. HAYES,
who, as a young lawyer in Cincinnati.
Ohio, served as counsel in fugitive slave
cases.
COUNSEL POR FUGITIVE SLAVES 283
negroes belonging to the Piatt family of Kentucky, before
their claimants could arrive to prove property. The attempt
was successful, and, by prearrangement, the fugitives were
taken into a carriage and driven rapidly to a neighboring
station of the Underground Railroad. The funds to pay the
sheriff, the court expenses and the livery hire were borne in
part by Messrs. West and Walker.^
Among the names of the legal opponents of fugitive slave
legislation in Massachusetts, that of Josiah Quincy, who
gained distinction in public life and as President of Harvard
College, is first to be noted. Mr. Quincy was counsel for
the alleged runaway in one of the earliest cases arising under
the act of 1793.^ In some of the well-known cases that were
tried under the later act Richard H. Dana, Robert Rantoul,
Jr., Ellis Gray Loring, Samuel E. Sewell and Charles G-.
Davis appeared for the defence. Sims' case was conducted
by Robert Rantoul, Jr., and Mr. Sewell ; Shadrach's by
Messrs. Davis, Sewell and Loring ; and Burns' case by Mr.
Dana and others.*
Instances gathered from other Northern states seem to
indicate that information of arrests under the Fugitive Slave
acts almost invariably called out some volunteer to use his
legal knowledge and skill in behalf of the accused, and that
in many centres there were not lacking men of professional
standing ready to give their best efforts under circumstances
that promised, in general, little but defeat. Owen Lovejoy,
of Princeton, Illinois, was arrested on one occasion for aiding
fugitive slaves, and was defended by James H. Collins, a
well-known attorney of Chicago. Returning from the trial
of Lovejoy, Mr. Collins learned of the arrest of Deacon
Gushing, of WiU County, on a similar charge, and together
with John M. Wilson he immediately volunteered to conduct
the new case.* At the hearing of Jim Gray, a runaway from
Missouri, held before Judge Caton of the State Supreme
Court at Ottawa, Illinois, Judge E. S. Leland, B. C. Cook,
1 Conversation with Judge William H. West, Belief ontaine, O., Aug. 11,
1894.
' M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 35.
» Ibid., pp. 44, 46, 47.
* G. H. Woodruff, History of Will County, Illinois, p. 264.
284 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
O. C. Gray and J. O. Glover appeared voluntarily as coun-
sel for the negro.i As a result of the hearing it was decided
by the court that the arrest was illegal, since it had been
made under the state law ; the negro was, therefore, dis-
charged from the arrest, but could not be released by the
judge from the custody of the United States marshal. How-
ever, the bondman was rescued, and thus escaped. Eight
men were indicted on account of this affair, prominent among
whom were John Hossack and Dr. Joseph Stout, of Ottawa.
Mr. Hossack, who was tried first, had -an array of six of the
leading lawyers of Chicago to present his side of the case ;
they were the Hons. Isaac N. Arnold, Joseph Knox, B. C.
Cook, J. V. Eustace, E. Leland and E. C. Larnard. Mr.
Stout had three of these men to represent him, namely,
Messrs. Eustace, Larnard and Arnold.^ Early in March,
1860, two citizens of Tabor, Iowa, Edward Sheldon and
Newton Woodford, were captured while conducting four
runaways from the Indian Territory to a station of the Un-
derground Railroad. At the trial they were ably defended
by James Vincent, Lewis Mason and his brother, and were
acquitted. It may be added that the trial closed at nine
o'clock in the evening, and before daybreak the negroes had
been rescued and sent forward on their way to Canada.*
In Philadelphia there were several lawyers that could
always be depended on to resist the claims of the slave-owner
to his recaptured property in the courts. William StiU men-
tions two of these, namely, David Paul Brown and WiUiam
S. Pierce, as "well-known veterans" ready to defend the
slave "wherever and whenever called upon to do so."*
Robert Purvis relates an incident of David Paul Brown that
will be recognized as characteristic of the spirit in which the
class of advocates to which he belonged rendered their ser-
vices for the slave. A case growing out of the capture of a
1 The Ottawa Bepublican, Nov. 9, 1891. The hearing occurred Oct. 20,
1859.
2 The Pontiac (HI.) Sentinel, 1891-1892.
» The Tabor (la.) Beacon, 1890-1891, Chap. XXI of a series of articles
by the Rev. John Todd, on "The Early Settlement and Growth of Western
Iowa."
* Underground Bailroad Records, p. 367.
LAST CASE UNDER SLAVE LAW OF 1850 285
negro by his pursuers occupied the attention of Mr. Purvis
for a season in 1836, and he desited to engage Mr. Brown
for the defence ; he accordingly presented the matter to the
distinguished attorney, offering him a fee of fifty dollars in
advance. Mr. Brovs^n promptly undertook the case, but re-
fused the money, saying : " I shall not now, nor have I ever,
accepted fee or reward, other than the approval of my own
conscience, and I respectfully decline receiving your money."!
In what was, so far as known, the last case under the
Slave Law of 1850, Mr. John Dean, a prominent lawyer of
Washington, D.C., displayed noteworthy zeal in the interest
of his client, a supposed fugitive. The affair occurred in
June, 1862, and came within the cognizance of the United
States courts. Mr. Dean, who had just obtained the dis-
charge of the colored man from arrest, interfered to prevent
his seizure a second time as the slave of a Virginian. The
claimant, aided by other persons, sought to detain the black
until a civil officer should arrive to take him into custody,
but the attorney's surprising play at fisticuffs defeated the
efforts of the assailing party and the black got away. He
soon enlisted in one of the colored regiments then forming
in Washington, and it is to be surmised that all question
concerning his status was put to rest by this step. Mr.
Dean was indicted for aiding in the escape of a fugitive
slave, and although the affair is said to have caused great
excitement in the Capital, especially in the two Houses of
Congress, it never reached a legal decision, but lapsed through
the progress of events that led rapidly to the Emancipation
Proclamation and the repeal of the Fugitive Slave laws.^
In the crisis that was reached with the beginning of the
new decade, the question of the rendition of fugitives from
service was by no means lost sight of. As in 1850, so in
1860 a measure for the more effective protection of slave
property appears to have been a necessary condition in any
plan of compromise that was to gain Southern support.
President Buchanan sought to meet the situation by pro-
1 Smedley, Underground Bailroad, p. 359.
2 This case is given by Mr. Noah Brooks, in his Washington in Lincoln's
Time, 1895, pp. 197, 198.
286 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
posing, in his message of December 4, 1860, the adoption of
" explanatory " amendment's to the Constitution recognizing
the master's right of recovery and the validity of the Fugitive
Slave Law ; he also recommended a declaration against the
so-called personal liberty laws of the states as unconstitu-
tional, and therefore void. This produced, within three
months, in the House, a crop of more than twenty resolutions
relative to fugitive slaves ; the deliberations of that body
issued at length, March 1, 1861, in the passage of a bill to
make more effective the law of 1850. The new measure
provided for an appeal to the Circuit Court of the United
States, where cases were to be tried by jury. But in the
Senate this bill never got beyond the first reading.
That the people of the Northern states would have
acquiesced in a new law for the surrender of runaway
negroes was certainly not to be expected. Both the law of
1793 and that of 1850 had been systematically evaded as well
as frequently denounced, and now memorials were being
sent to Congress praying for the repeal of the despised legis-
lation. ^ A bill for this purpose was introduced into the
House by Mr. Blake, of Ohio, in 1860, but was smothered
by the attempt to amend the existing law. A similar
measure was introduced into the Senate in December, 1861,
by Mr. Howe, of Wisconsin, who prefaced its presentation
by declaring that the Fugitive Slave Law " has had its day.
As a party act it has done its work. It probably has done
as much mischief as any other one act that was ever passed
by the national legislature. It has embittered against each
other two great sections of the country." ^ The bill was
referred to a committee, where it was kept for some time,
and at length was reported adversely in February, 1863.
In the meantime slavery was subjected to a series of de-
structive attacks in Congress, despite the views of some, who
held that the institution was under constitutional protection.
The passions and exigencies of the War, together with the
humane motives from which the anti-slavery movement had
sprung, did not leave these assaults without justification.
1 Wilson, Hise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. Ill, p. 395.
' Congressional Globe, Thirty-seventli Congress, First Session, 1356.
PROCLAMATION OF EMAJTCIPATION 287
In August, 1861, a law was enacted providing for the
emancipation of negroes employed in military service against
the government ; in April, 1862, slavery was abolished in
the District of Columbia ; in May, army officers were forbid-
den to restore fugitives to their owners ; in June slavery
was prohibited in the territories; and in July an act was
passed granting freedom to fugitives from disloyal masters
that could find refuge with the Union forces.
In the train of these measures, and in September of the
same year in which most of them were enacted. President
Lincoln issued his proclamation of warning to the South de-
claring that all persons held as slaves in the states continuing
in rebellion on the 1st of January, 1863, should be " thence-
forth and forever free." When the warning was carried into
effect on the first day of the new year by the famous Procla-
mation of Emancipation, ownership of slave property in the
border states was not abolished. The loyalty of these states
was their protection against interference. As the Fugitive
Slave Law was not yet repealed opportunity was still afforded
to civil officers to enforce its provisions both north and south
of Mason and Dixon's line. North of the line there was,
however, no disposition to enforce the law. South of it
wandering negroes were sometimes arrested by the civil
authorities for the purpose of being returned to their mas-
ters. The following advertisement, printed two months and
a half after the final proclamation went into effect, illustrates
the method pursued in dealing with supposed fugitives : —
" There was committed to the jail in Warren County, Kentucky,
as runaway slave, on the 29th September, 1862, a negro man call-
ing himself Jo Miner. He says he is free, but has nothing to
show to establish the fact. He is about thirty-five years of age,
very dark copper color, about five feet eight inches high, and will
weigh one hundred and fifty pounds. The owner can come for-
ward, prove property, and pay charges, or he will be dealt with as
the law requires.
E. J. POTTEK, J.W.C.
March 16, 1863. 1 m." '
1 Liberator, May 1, 1863. Extract from tlie Frankfort Commonwealth,
quoted by M. G. MoDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 80.
288 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Although the proposition to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law
of 1850 had been made in Congress in 1860, and repeated in
1861 and 1862, no definite and conclusive action was taken
until 1864. During the session of 1863-1864 five bills were
introduced into the House looking toward the repeal of the
law. In the discussion of the subject the probable effect of
revocation upon the border states was frequently dwelt upon,
and it was urged by many members that the loyal slave states
would consider repeal as " insult and outrage." Mr. Mallory,
of Kentucky, was one of those that took this view. He there-
fore demanded that the law " be permitted to remain on the
statute-book," urging, " If you say it will be a dead letter, so
much less excuse have you for repealing it, and so much more
certainly is the insult and wrong to Kentucky gratuitous."
In reply to this and other arguments the need of enlisting
negro soldiers was pressed on the attention of the House, and
it was said by Mr. Hubbard, of Connecticut, "You cannot
draft black men into the field while your marshals are chas-
ing women and children in the woods of Ohio with a view to
render them back into bondage. The moral sense of the
nation, ay, of the world, would revolt at it." ^ The conclusion
that slavery was already doomed to utter destruction coidd
not be avoided. The House therefore decided to throw away
the empty guarantee of the institution, and June 13 the
vote on the bill for repeal was taken. It resulted in the
measure being carried by a vote of 82 to 57. When the bill
from the House came before the Senate the question of repeal
was already under consideration, and, indeed, had been for
three months and a half. Nevertheless, the House measure
was at once referred to committee and was reported back June
15. It was then discussed by the Senate for several days and
voted on on June 23, the result being a vote of 27 in favor
of repeal to 12 against it. Two days later President Lincoln
affixed his signature to the bill, and the Fugitive Slave laws
were thereby annulled June 25, 1864. The constitutional
provision for the recovery of runaways, which had been
1 Congressional Glohe, Thirty -eighth Congress, First Session, 2913. See
also M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 86.
REPEAL OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS 289
judicially declared in the decision of Prigg's case to be self-
executing was not cancelled until December 18, 1865, when
the Secretary of State proclaimed the adoption of the
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution by the requisite
number of states.
CHAPTER X
THE UNDERGROUND BALLROAD IN POLITICS
To set forth tlie political aspect of the Underground Rail-
road is not easy. Yet this side must be understood if the
Underground Railroad is to appear in its true character as
something more than a mere manifestation of the moral
sentiment existing in the North and in some localities of the
South. The romantic episodes in the fugitive slave contro-
versy have been frequently described ; but it has alto-
gether escaped the eye of the general historian that the
underground movement was one that grew from small
beginnings into a great system ; that it must be reckoned
with as a distinct causal factor in tracing the growth of
anti-slavery opinion ; that it furnished object lessons in the
horrors of slavery without cessation during two generations
to communities in many parts of the free states ; that it was
largely serviceable in developing, if not in originating, the
convictions of such powerful agents in the cause as Harriet
Beecher Stowe and John Brown ; that it alone serves to ex-
plain the enactment of that most remarkable piece of legisla-
tion, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 ; and, finally, that it
furnished the ground for the charge brought again and
again by the South against the North of injury wrought by
the failure to execute the law, a charge that must be placed
among the chief grievances of the slave states at the begin-
ning of the Civil War.
Even in colonial times there was difficulty in recovering
fugitive slaves, because of the aid rendered them by friends,
as is apparent from an examination of some of the regula-
tions that the colonies began to pass soon after the intro-
duction of slavery in 1619. The Director and Council of
New Netherlands enacted an ordinance as early as 1640,
290
GERRIT SlUTH, M.C.,
the multi-millionnaire, whose mansiou in
Peterboro, New York, was a station.
JOSHUA E. GIDDINGS, M.C.,
who kept a room in his house in Jefferson,
Ohio, for fugitives
CHARLES SUMNER,
THE CHAMPION OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED
STATES.
RICHARD H. DANA, Jr.,
COUNSEL FOR COLORED REFUGEES IN
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.
EXTRADITION IN COLONIAL TIMES 291
one of the provisions of whicli forbade all inhabitants of
New Netherlands to harbor or feed fugitive servants under a
penalty of fifty guilders, " for the benefit of the Informer ;
\ for the new Church and i for the Fiscal." i Other
regulations for the same colony contained clauses prohib-
iting the entertainment of runaways ; such are the laws of
1642,2 1648,3 1658,4 and, after the Dutch had been sup-
planted by English control, those of 17025 and 1730.6 An
act of Virginia that went into force in 1642 was attributed
to the complaints made at every quarter court "against
divers persons who entertain and enter into covenants with
runaway servants and freemen who have formerly hired
themselves to others, to the great prejudice if not the utter
undoing of divers poor men, thereby also encouraging ser-
vants to run from their masters and obscure themselves in
some remote plantation." By way of penalty, to break up
the practice of helping runaways, this law provided that
persons guilty of the offence were to be fined twenty pounds
of tobacco for each night's hospitality.'' That the law was
ineffectual is indicated by the increase of the penalty in 1655
by the addition to the twenty pounds of tobacco for eacli
night's entertainment of forty pounds for each day's enter-
tainment.^ Similar acts were passed by Virginia in 1657,®
1666,1° aj^(j 1726.11 The last act required masters of vessels
to swear that they would make diligent search of their craft
to prevent the stowing away of servants or slaves eager to
escape from their owners. An act of Maryland passed in
1666 established a fine of five hundred pounds of casked
tobacco for the first night's hospitality, one thousand pounds
for the second, and fifteen hundred pounds for each succeed-
ing night.12 A law of New Jersey in 1668 laid a penalty of
* Laws and Ordinances of New Netherlands, 32.
^Ihid. »iJid., 104.
* Laws of New Netherlands, 344.
" Acts of Province of New York from 1691 to 1718, p. 58.
» Ihid., 193.
' Statutes at Large, Henmg, Laws of Virginia, I, 253.
« Ibid., 1, 401. 1° Ibid., II, 239.
» Ibid. , I, 439. " Ibid. , IV, 168.
u Maryland Archives, Assembly Proceedings, 147.
292 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
five pounds in money and such damages as the court should
adjudge upon any one transporting or contriving the trans-
portation of an apprentice or servant ; ^ while another law,
enacted seven years later, declared that every inhabitant
guilty of harboring an apprentice, servant or slave, should
forfeit to his master or dame ten shillings for every day's
concealment, and, if unable to pay this amount, should be
liable to the judgment of the court.^ Provisions are also to
be found in the regulations of Massachusetts Bay ,3 Rhode
Island,* Connecticut,^ Pennsylvania® and North Carolina,''
clearly intended to discourage the entertainment or the
transportation of fugitives. It is interesting to note that
in these early times Canada was a refuge for fugitives. In
1705 New York passed a law, which was reenacted ten years
later, to prevent the escape of negro slaves from the city
and county of Albany to the French in Canada. The reason
given for the law was the necessity of keeping from the
French in time of war knowledge that might prove service-
able for military purposes.*
The group of enactments just considered together with
many other early measures relating to the subject of fugitives
makes it clear that the question of extradition of runaway
slaves had also arisen in colonial times. A stipulation for
the return of fugitives had been inserted in the formal agree-
ment entered into by Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecti-
cut and New Haven at the time of the formation of the New
England Confederation in 1643,® and may be supposed to
1 New Jersey Laws, 82.
2 Ibid., 109.
' Charters and General Laws of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts
Bay, 386, 750 (1707 and 1718 respectively).
* Proceedings of General Assembly, Colony of Bhode Island and Prom-
dence Plantations, Providence, 177; Records of Colony of Bhode Island, 177.
* Acts and Laws of His Majestie^s Colony of Connecticut, 229 (1730 prob-
ably).
8 Province Laws of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1725 ; Province Laws of
Pennsylvania, 325.
' Laws of North Carolina, 89 (1741); Ibid., 371 (1779).
8 Acts of Province of New York, 77 (1705) ; Laws of Province of New
York, 218 (1715) ; Marion G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, 8.
° Plymouth Colony Records, IX, 6 ; Marion G. McDougall, Fugitive
leaves, 7.
QUESTION OF EXTRADITION IN 1787 293
have remained in force for a period of forty years. In the
first national constitution, the Articles of Confederation
adopted in 1781, no such provision was made. This omis-
sion soon became serious through the action of the states
of Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and
Rhode Island between 1777 and 1784 in taking steps toward
immediate or gradual emancipation; for the first time the ques-
tion of the status of fugitives in free regions was now raised.
When, in 1787, the question arose of providing a govern-
ment for the territory northwest of the Ohio River, the
difi&culty was felt ; and the Northwest Ordinance included
a clause for the reclamation of fugitives from labor. A
proposition made by Mr. King in 1785 to prohibit slavery
in this region without any provision for reclaiming fugitives
had gone to committee, but was never afterwards called up
in Congress. In the discussion of 1787 an amendment was
offered by Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, the first clause of
which excluded slavery from the territory, and the second
clause provided for the rendition of fugitives. The previous
delay and the prompt and unanimous approval of the com-
promise measure of Mr. Dane give force to the contention
of a special student of the Ordinance, that the stipulation
forbidding slavery could not have been adopted without the
provision for the recovery of runaways.^
About six weeks after the incorporation, by the Conti-
nental Congress, of the fugitive slave clause in the North-
west Ordinance, a similar provision was made a part of the
Constitution of the United States by the vote of the Federal
Convention at Philadelphia. ^ In the case of the Constitu-
tion, as of the Ordinance, the clause was probably necessary
for the acceptance and adoption of the instrument, and the
action of the legislative body was unanimous.^
1 Peter Force, on the Ordinance of 1787, in the National Intelligencer,
1847. See also E. B. Chase's volume, entitled Teachings of Patriots and
Statesmen, or the "Founders of the Mepublio" on Slavery, 1860, pp. 156, 160,
161, 169.
2 E. B. Chase, Teachings of Patriots and Statesmen . . . on Slavery, p. 9.
' Alexander Johnston's careful survey of the subject in the New Princeton
Beview, Vol. IV, p. 183 ; J. H. Merriam, Legislative History of the Ordi-
nance of 1787, "Worcester, 1888 ; M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 64.
294 UNDEEGKOUND KAILEOAD
The settlement reached in regard to fugitives appears to
have excited little comment in the various state conventions
called to ratify the work of the Philadelphia Convention.
It would be interesting to know what was the nature of the
discussion on the point in the North. In the South the tone
of sentiment concerning the matter is illustrated by the
remarks of Madison in the Virginia convention, and of Ire-
dell and Pinckney in the conventions of North and South
Carolina respectively.^ Madison asserted of the fugitive
clause that it " secures to us that property which we now
possess." Iredell explained that "In some of the Northern
states they have emancipated all their slaves. If any of
our slaves go there and remain there a certain time, they
would, by the present laws, be entitled to their freedom, so
that their masters could not get them again. This would
be extremely prejudicial to the inhabitants of the Southern
states ; and to prevent it this clause is inserted in the Con-
stitution. Though the word slave is not mentioned, this is
the meaning of it." Pinckney declared: "We have ob-
tained a right to recover our slaves, in whatever part of
America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not
before. In short, considering the circumstances, we have
made the best terms for the security of this species of prop-
erty it was in our power to make. We would have made
better if we could ; but, on the whole, I do not think them
bad." 2
The constitutional provision was, of course, general in its
terms, and, although mandatory in form, did not designate
any particular officer or branch of government to put it into
execution. Accordingly the law of 1793 was enacted. This
law, however, was of such a character as to defeat itself from
the beginning. Before the close of the year in which the
measure was passed a case of resistance occurred, which
showed that adverse sentiment existed in Massachusetts,^
1 These views are quoted by E. B. Chase, in his Teachings of Patriots and
Statesmen . . . on Slavery.
» Ibid. See also ElUot's Debates, Vol. Ill, 182, 277.
' Appendix B, p. 367, 6. First recorded case of rescue (Quincy's case,
Boston).
AGITATION FOR A NEW SLAVE LAW 295
and three years later another case — especially interesting
because it concerned an escaped slave of Washington —
demonstrated to the first President that there was strong
opposition in New Hampshire to the law.^ The method of
proof prescribed by the measure was intended to facilitate
the recovery of fugitives, but it was so slack that it encour-
aged the abduction of free negroes from the Northern states,^
and thus, by the injustice it wrought, stirred many to give
protection and assistance to negroes.^ The number of cases
of kidnapping that occurred along the southern border of
the free states between 1793 and 1850 helps doubtless to ex-
plain the development of numerous initial stations of the
Underground Railroad during this period.
The inefficiency of the first Fugitive Slave Act was early
recognized, and the period during which it was in existence
witnessed many attempts at amendment. It is possible that
the failure of Washington to recover his slave in 1796 fur-
nished the occasion for the fii-st of these.* A motion was
made, December 29, 1796, looking toward the alteration of
the law.* Apparently nothing was done at this time, and
the matter lapsed until 1801, when it came up in January
and again in December of that year.® In the month last
named a committee was appointed in the House, which
reported a bill that gave rise to considerable debate. This
bUl provided that emplopng a fugitive as well as harboring
one should be punishable ; and that those furnishing employ-
ment to negroes must require them to show official certificates
and must publish descriptions of them. It is reported that
Southern members " considered it a great injury to the own-
ers of that species of property, that runaways were employed
in the Middle and Northern states, and even assisted in pro-
' Appendix B, p. 367. Washington's fugitive, October, 1796.
" Chapter n, p. 22 ; Chapter V, p. 120.
» Ibid.
* William Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, pp. 231, 232.
' Souse Journal, Fourth Congress, Second Session, p. 65 ; Annals of Con-
gress, pp. 1741, 1767.
° Souse Journal, Sixth Congress, Second Session, p. 220 ; Annals of Con-
gress, p. 1053; Souse Journal, Seventh Congress, First Session, p. 34 ; Annals
of Congress, p. 317.
296 TINDERGROtJND RAILROAD
curing a living. They stated that, when slaves ran away
and were not recovered, it excited discontent among the rest.
"When they were caught and brought home, they informed
their comrades how well they were received and assisted,
which excited a disposition in others to attempt escaping,
and obliged their masters to use greater severity than they
otherwise would. It was, they said, even on the score of
humanity, good policy in those opposed to slavery to agree
to this law."i Northern members did not accept this view
of the fugitive slave question, and when the proposed bill
was put to vote January 18, 1802, it failed of passage.^ The
division on the measure took place on sectional grounds, all
the Northern members but five voting against it, all the
Southern members but two for it.^
For the next fifteen years Congress appears to have given
no consideration to the propriety of amending the law of
1793. Its attention was mainly occupied by the abolition of
the slave-trade, the agitation preliminary to the War of 1812,
and the events of that War.* At length, in 1817, a Senate
committee reported a bill to revise the law, but it was never
brought up for consideration. In the same year a bill was
drafted and presented to the House, on account of the need
of a remedy for the increased insecurity of slave property in
the border slave states. Pindall, of Virginia, seems to have
been its originator ; at any rate he was the chairman of the
committee that reported the proposition. The interest in
the discussion that resulted was increased, doubtless, by two
petitions, one from the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, ask-
ing for a milder law than that in existence, the other from
the Baltimore Quakers, seeking some security for free negroes
against kidnapping.
The House bill as presented in 1817 secured to the claim-
ant of a runaway the right to prove his title before the courts
1 House Journal, Seventh Congress, First Session, p. 125 ; Annals of Con-
gress, pp. 422, 423.
2 The vote stood 46 to 43.
' Souse Journal, Seventh Congress, First Session, pp. 125, 128 ; Annals of
Congress, pp. 423, 426.
* W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the American Slave Trade,
pp. 105-109.
AGITATION FOR A NEW SLAVE LAW 297
of his own state, and thus to reclaim his human property
through requisition upon the governor of the state in which
it had taken refuge; it was further provided that the writ
of habeas corpus was to have no force as against the provi-
sions of the proposed act. The objections made to the
measure are worth noting. Mr. Holmes, of Massachusetts,
disapproved of the effort to dispense with the writ of habeas
corpus, stating that such action would remove a safeguard
from the liberty of free colored people. Mr. Mason, of the
same state, declared against trial by jury, which somebody
had proposed, insisting that " juries in Massachusetts would
in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred decide in favor of
fugitives, and he did not wish his town (Boston) infected
with the runaways of the South." Mr. Sergeant, of Penn-
sylvania, sought to amend the bill by making the judges
of the state in which the arrest occurred the tribunal to
decide the fact of slavery. And, last of all, Mr. Whitman,
of Massachusetts, opposed the provision making it a penal
offence for a state of&cer to decline to execute the act ;
a point, it should be remarked, that came into prominence
in the famous case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania in 1842.
Notwithstanding these efforts to modify the bill, it was
carried without change, January 30, 1818, by a vote of 84
to 69. In the Senate the bill was not passed without
alteration. After a vote to limit the act to four years,
the upper House made amendments requiring some proofs
of the debt of service claimed other than the affidavit of
the claimant, and then passed the act on March 12. The
lower House did not find the modified bill to its liking, and
therefore declined to consider it further.^
This failure to secure a new general fugitive slave act by
no means prevented those interested from renewing their
1 Souse Journal, Fifteenth Congress, First Session, pp. 50, 86, 182, 186,
189, pp. 193, 198 ; Annals of Congress, pp. 446, 447, 513, 829-831, 838, 840,
1339, 1393. Senate Journal, Fifteentli Congress, First Session, pp. 128, 135,
174, 202, 227, 228, 233 ; House Journal, p. 328 ; Annals of Congress, pp. 165,
210, 259, 262, 1339, 1716 ; T. H. Benton, Abridgment of the Debates of Con-
gress, Vol. VI, pp. 35, 36, 37, 110 ; M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 21-
23 ; Lalor's Cyclopoedia, Vol. II, pp. 315, 316 ; Sohouler, History of the United
States, Vol. ni, p. 144.
298 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
endeavors in that direction. Before the close of the year
the House was prompted to bestir itself again by a resolu-
tion of the Maryland legislature asking protection against
citizens of Pennsylvania who were charged with harboring
and protecting fugitive slaves.^ That the allegation was
well founded cannot be doubted. Evidence has already
been adduced to show that numerous branches of the Under-
ground Railroad had begun to develop in southeastern Penn-
sylvania as early at least as the year I8OO.2 A month after
the presentation of the Maryland resolution a committee of
the House was appointed. This committee reported a bill
without delay, but again nothing was accomplished. The
framing of the Missouri Compromise at the next session of
Congress, in 1820, gave opportunity for the incorporation of
a fugitive recovery clause, to enable Southern settlers in
Missouri and other slave states to recapture their absconding
slaves from the free territory north of the new state. ^ The
fugitive clause in the Ordinance of 1787 had insured the
same right for slave-owners taking land along the western
frontier of Illinois.
But of what utility were such provisions unless they could
be carried into effect ? Immediately after the Missouri
Compromise became a law, propositions for new fugitive
slave acts were again offered in both the House and the
Senate.* A later attempt was made in the winter of 1821-
1822, when another resolution of the Maryland legislature
similar to the one mentioned above was presented. These
efforts, like the earlier ones, failed to secure the desired
legislation.^
- McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 23.
2 Chapter II, pp. 21, 22.
' Annals of Congress, Sixteenth Congress, First Session, pp. 1469, 1587.
McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 23. It will be rememtiered that according to
the compromise Missouri was to he admitted into the Union as a slave state,
while slavery was to be prohibited in all other territory gained from France
north of 36 degrees 30 minutes. See Appendix A, p. 361.
* House Journal, Sixteenth Congress, First Session, p. 427.
5 Senate Journal, Sixteenth Congress, First Session, pp. 319, 326 ; Annals
of Congress, p. 618 ; House Journal, Seventeenth Congress, First Session,
p. 143 ; Annals of Congress, pp. 553, 558, 710. Annals of Congress, Seven-
teenth Congress, First Session, pp. 1379, 1415, 1444 ; Benton, Abridgment
NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA 299
The last petition of Maryland to Congress for the redress
of her grievance due to the underground operations of
anti-slavery Pennsylvanians was made December 17, 1821.
The month of January of the same year had witnessed the
presentation in Congress of a resolution from the general
assembly of Kentucky, protesting against Canada's admis-
sion of fugitives to her domain, and requesting negotiation
with Great Britain on the subject. In 1826, during the
administration of John Quincy Adams, negotiations were at
length opened. Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, in-
structed Mr. Gallatin, the American Minister at the Court
of St. James, to propose an agreement between the two
countries providing for "mutual surrender of aU persons
held to service or labor, under the laws of either party,
who escape into the territory of the other." His purpose in
urging such a stipulation was, he declared, " to provide for a
growing evil which has produced some, and if it be not
shortly checked, is likely to produce much more irritation."
He also stated that Virginia and Kentucky were particularly
anxious that an understanding should be reached.
In February, 1827, Mr. Clay again communicated with
Mr. Gallatin on the subject, being led to do so by another
appeal made to the general government by the legislature of
Kentucky. At this time he mentioned the fact that a pro-
vision for the restoration of fugitive slaves had been inserted
in the treaty recently concluded with the United Mexican
States, a treaty, it should be added, that faUed of confirma-
tion by the Mexican Senate. About five months later the
American Minister sent word to the Secretary of State that
the English authorities had decided that "It was utterly
impossible for them to agree to a stipulation for the sur-
render of fugitive slaves," and this decision was reaffirmed
in September, 1827.
The positive terms in which this conclusion was announced
by the representative of the British government might have
been accepted as final at this time had not further considera-
tion of the question been demanded by the House of Rep-
0/ the Debates of Congress, Vol. VI, p. 296 ; McDougall, Fugitive Slaves,
pp. 23, 24.
300 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
resentatives. On May 10, 1828, that body adopted a
resolution "requesting the President to open a negotiation
with the British government in the view to obtain an
arrangement whereby fugitive slaves, who have taken refuge
in the Canadian provinces of that government, may be
surrendered by the functionaries thereof to their masters,
upon their making satisfactory proof of their ownership of
said slaves." This resolution was promptly transmitted to
Mr. Barbour, the new Minister, with the explanation before
made to Gallatin, that the evil at which it was directed was a
growing one, well calculated to disturb " the good neighbor-
hood" that the United States desired to maintain with the
adjacent British provinces. But as in the case of the former
attempts to secure the extradition of the refugee settlers in
Canada, so also in this, the advances of the American gov-
ernment were met by the persistent refusal of Great Britain
to make a satisfactory answer. ^
The agitation in Congress for a more effective fugitive
slave law, and the diplomatic negotiations for the recovery
of runaways from Canadian soil, which have been recounted
in the preceding pages, must be regarded as furnishing evi-
dence of the existence in many localities in the free states
of a strong practical anti-slavery sentiment. This evidence
is reenforced by the facts presented in the earlier chapters
of this volume. The escape of slaves from their masters
into the free states and their simple but impressive appeals
for liberty were phenomena witnessed again and again by
many Northern people during the opening as well as the
later decades of the nineteenth century ; and deepened the
conviction in their minds that slavery was wrong. Thus
for years the runaway slave was a missionary in the cause
of freedom, especially in the rapidly settling Western states.
His heroic pilgrimage, undertaken under the greatest diffi-
culties, was calculated to excite active interest in his behalf.
Persons living along the border of the slave states, whose
sympathies were stirred to action by their personal know-
1 Niles' Weekly Register, Vol. XXXV, pp. 289-291 ; S. G. Howe, The
Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, pp. 12-14 ; William Goodell, Slavery
and Anti-Slavery, p. 264 ; M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 25.
EFFECT OF THE FUGITIVE SLATE'S APPEAL 301
ledge of the hardsliips of slavery, became the promoters of
Unas of Underground Railroad, sending or taking fugitives
northward to friends they could trust. It was not an infre-
quent occurrence that intimate neighbors were called in to
hear the thrilling tales of escape related in the picturesque
and fervid language of negroes that valued liberty more
than life. The writer, who has heard some of these stories
from the lips of surviving refugees in Canada, can well
understand the effect they must have produced upon the
minds of the spectators. Many children got their lasting
impression of slavery from the things they saw and heard
in homes that were stations on the Underground Road.
John Brown was reared in such a home. His father, Owen
Brown, was among the earliest settlers of the Western Re-
serve in Ohio that are known to have harbored fugitives,
and the son followed the f atl^r's example in keeping open
house for runaway slaves.^ As early as 1815 many blacks
began to find their way across the Reserve,^ and it is stated
that even before this year more than a thousand fugitives
had been assisted on their way to Canada by a few anti-
slavery people of Brown County in southwestern Ohio.^ It
is probable that numerous escapes were also being made
thus early through other settled regions. The cause for this
early exodus is not far to seek. The increase of the domes-
tic slave-trade from the northern belt of slaveholding states
to the extreme South, due to the profitableness of cotton-
raising, and stimulated by the prohibition of the foreign
slave-trade in 1807, aroused slaves to flight in order to avoid
being sold to unknown masters in remote regions. The
slight knowledge they needed to guide them in a northerly
course was easily obtainable through the rumors about Can-
ada everywhere current during the War of 1812.* The no-
ticeable political effects of the straggling migration that
began under these circumstances is seen in the renewed agi-
tation by Southern members of Congress during the years
1817 to 1822 for a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law, and
1 Chapter II, p. 37. ^ Ibid., pp. 37, 38.
» William Bimey, James Q. Birney and His Times, p. 435.
« Chapter H, p. 27.
302 TJNDERGROXIND RAILROAD
the negotiations with England several years later looking
toward the restoration to the South of runaways who had
found freedom and security on Canadian soil.
The influence of the Underground Road in spreading
abroad an abiding anti-slavery sentiment was, of course,
greatly restricted by the caution its operators had to ob-
serve to keep themselves and their prot^g^s out of trouble.
The deviating secret routes of the great system were devel-
oped in response to the need of passengers that were in con-
stant danger of pursuit. It is this fact of the pursuit of
runaways into various communities where they were sup-
posed to be in hiding, together with the harsh scenes enacted
by hireling slave-catchers in raiding some station of the Un-
derground Road, that gave to the operations of the Road that
publicity necessary to make converts to the anti-slavery cause.
During the earlier years of the Road's development the pur-
suit of runaways was not so common as it came to be after
1840, and later, after the passage of the second Fugitive Slave
Law in 1850 ; but cases are recorded, as already noted, in 1793
in Boston, 1804 in eastern Pennsylvania, 1818 in New Bed-
ford, Massachusetts, and elsewhere. These are but illustrar
tions of a class of early cases that brought the question of
slavery home to many Northern communities with such force
as could not have been done in any other way. These cases,
like the numerous cases of kidnapping that occurred during
the same period, contributed not a little to keep alive a senti-
ment that was steadily opposed to slavery, and that expressed
and strengthened itself in the practice of harboring and pro-
tecting fugitives. / The great effect upon public opinion of
these cases, and such as these, appears from the sad affair of
Margaret Garner, a slave-woman who escaped from Boone
County, Kentucky, late in January, 1856, and found shelter
with her four children in the house of a colored man near
Cincinnati, Ohio. Rather than see her offspring doomed to
the fate from which she had hoped to save them, she nerved
herself to accomplish their death. While her master, suc-
cessful in his pursuit, was preparing to take them back across
the river, she began the work of butchery by killing her favor-
ite child. Before she could finish her awful task she was
PREPAEATION FOR GARRISONIAN MOVEMENT 303
interrupted and put in prison. The efforts to prevent her
return to Southern bondage proved unavailing, and she was
at length delivered to her master, together with the children
she had meant to kill. President R. B. Hayes, who was
practising law in Cincinnati at the time, and lived on a pro-
slavery street, told Professor James Monroe, of Oberlin Col-
lege, that the tragedy converted " the whole street," and that
the day after the murder "a leader among his pro-slavery
neighbors" called at his house, and declared with great
fervor, "Mr. Hayes, hereafter I am with you. From this
time forward, I will not only be a black Republican, but I
will be a damned abolitionist ! " ^ '
That the doctrine of immediate abolition should find ex-
pression during the years in which the underground move-
ment was in its initial stage of development, is a fact the
importance of which should be given due recognition in
tracing the growth of anti-slavery sentiment to 1830, and in
showing thus what was the preparation of the North for the
advent of Garrison and his followers, and for the party move-
ments in opposition to slavery. It is surely worthy of remark
in this connection that, of the three men that promulgated
the idea of immediate abolition before 1830, one published a
book, containing, besides other things, an argument in sup-
port of the assistance rendered to fugitive slaves, while an-
other was known both in Ohio and in the Southern states as
an intrepid underground operator.
Of the trio the first in point of time as also in pungency of
statement was the Rev. George Bourne, who went to live in
Virginia about 1809 after several years residence in Maryland.
Mr. Bourne's acquaintance with slavery impressed him deeply
with the evils of the system, and he accordingly felt con-
strained to preach and also to publish some vehement protests
against it. For this he was persecuted and driven from Vir-
ginia, and, like a hunted slave, he found his way in the night
into Pennsylvania, where he settled with his family. Among
his writings is a small volume entitled The Book and Slavery
Irreconcilable, published in 1816 and addressed to all that
^ James Monroe, Oberlin Thursday Lectures, Addresses, and Essays, 1897,
p. 116. See Appendix B, pp. 367-377, for cases under the Slave laws.
304 UNDEEGEOUND EAILEOAD
professed to be members of Christian churches. In it the
author vigorously and repeatedly urged the " immediate and
total abolition " of slavery, and warned his contemporaries of
the consequences of continuing the system until by its growth
it should endanger the Union. He could discover no pallia-
tive suitable to the evil. " The system is so entirely corrupt,"
he said, " that it admits of no cure but by a total and immediate
abolition. For a gradual emancipation is a virtual recognition
of the right, and establishes the rectitude of the practice. If
it be just for one moment, it is hallowed forever ; and if it be
inequitable, not a day should it be tolerated." ^
Eight years after the appearance of the book containing
these uncompromising views, a treatise was published at the
town of Vevay on the Ohio River in southeastern Indiana
by the Rev. James Duncan. This small work was entitled
A Treatise on Slavery, in which is shown forth the Hvil of
Slaveholding, both from the Light of Nature and Divine Reve-
lation. The purpose of the work as set forth by the author
was to persuade all slaveholders that they were " guilty of
a crime, not only of the highest aggravation, but one that,
if persisted in," would " inevitably lead them to perdition." "^
He therefore assailed the principle of slavery, denying the
argument admitted by some of the apologists for slavery
among his contemporaries, namely, "that the emancipation
of slaves need not be sudden, but gradual, lest the possessors
of them should be too much impoverished, and lest the free
inhabitants might be exposed to danger, if the blacks were
all liberated at once." This doctrine of the inexpediency of
immediate abolition Mr. Duncan denied, taking the position
that such excuses would " go to justify the practice of slave-
holding, because the only motive that men can have to prac-
tise slavery is that it may be a means of preventing poverty
and other penal evils. If the fear of poverty or any penal
1 These quotations are taken from the summary of Bourne's The Booh
and Slavery Irreconcilable, given in the Boston Commonwealth, July 25, 1885,
since the original was inaccessible to the present writer. The summary ia
known to be trustworthy. See The Life of Garrison, by his children, Vol. I,
postscript to the Preface, and the references to the original there given.
2 Preface, p. viii.
EAKLY ADVOCATES OP IMMEDIATISM 305
sufferings will exculpate tte possessors of slaves from blame
for a few months or years, it will do it for life ; and if some
may be lawfully held to labor without wages, all may be
held the same way ; and if the principle of slavery is morally
wrong, it ought not to be practised to avoid any penal evil,
hut if just, even the cruel treatment of slaves would not con-
demn the practice." ^ He maintained that, although the dif-
ferent sections of the country were not equally guUty of the
sins of slaveholding, yet the nation as a whole was respon-
sible for the evil, — on account of the number in the free
states that were friendly to slavery, on account also of the
advocacy by Northern representatives of the policy of slavery
extension, and, finally, on account of the slack zeal of some
of those inimical to the institution.^ He proposed that Chris-
tians should have no church fellowship with slaveholders ; he
urged political action against slavery ; and he supplemented
the assertion that it was the duty of slaves to escape if they
could, by the statement that it was impossible for any one to
hinder or prevent their escape without flying in the face of
the moral law.^ As regards gradualism, which was practised
in some states, he said : " If it is lawful to hold a man in
bondage until he is twenty-eight years of age, it must be
equally lawful to hold him to the day of his death ; and if
it is sinful to hold him to the day of his death, it must par-
take of the same species of crime to hold him until he is
1 Preface, pp. vii, viii.
2 A Treatise, on Slavery, reprinted by the American Anti-Slavery Society,
1840, p. 59.
^ Ibid., p. 107. In advocating political action Mr. Duncan said, "The
practice of slaveholding in a slave state need not deter emancipators or others
from the privilege of voting for candidates to the legislative bodies, or from
using their best endeavors to have men placed in office that would be favor-
able to the cause of freedom, and yrho may be best qualified to govern the
state or commonwealth, but it ought to prevent any from officiating as a
magistrate, when his commission authorizes him to issue a warrant to appre-
hend the slave when he is guilty of no other crime than that of running away
from unmerited bondage." This was not the first time political action was
proposed, for Mr. Bourne declared in his work (The Book and Slavery
Irreconcilable') : "Every voter for a public officer who will not destroy the
system, is as culpable as if he participated in the evil, and is responsible for
the protraction of the crime." See the Boston Commonwealth, July 25,
1885.
306 XMDERGROIIND RAILROAD
twenty-eight." 1 The arguments in support of his position
he based largely upon the Decalogue, the Golden Rule and
other scriptural injunctions, as well as upon the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.^
Underground operators always justified themselves on these
grounds ; and their motives in joining the Liberty and Free
Soil parties later — as many of them did — appear not to have
been other than the motives of Bourne and Duncan in advo-
cating political action against slavery.
The last member of the trio who complained of delay in
granting freedom to the enslaved was the Rev. John Rankin,
the pastor of a Presbyterian church in the town of Ripley on
the Ohio River in southwestern Ohio. Long residence in
Tennessee and Kentucky had filled him with hatred of sla-
very, and for this hatred he gave his reasons in a series of
thirteen vigorous letters addressed to his brother Thomas,
a merchant at Middlebrook, Augusta County, Virginia, who
had recently become a slave-owner. The letters were writ-
ten in 1824, and were collected in a little volume in 1826.
In the preface, Mr. Rankin said that the safety of the govern-
ment and the happiness of its subjects depended upon the
extermination of slavery,^ and in the letters themselves he
attacked the system of American slavery in unmistakable
language. In principle he stood clearly with Bourne and
Duncan, as he afterwards came to the support of Garrison,
although he did not use the words "immediate abolition."
He held that " Avarice tends to enslave, but justice requires
emancipation."* He heard with impatience the excuse for
continued slaveholding that freedom would ruin the blacks
because they were not capable of doing for themselves, and
must, therefore, either all starve or steal. With sarcasm he
exclaimed, " Immaculate tenderness ! Astonishing sympathy !
But what is to be dreaded more than such tenderness and
sympathy ? Who would wish to have them exercised upon
' A Treatise on Slavery, p. 123.
2 Ibid., pp. 21, 32-40, 82, 84, 87-94, 96, 107. Mr. Duncan held that
slavery was " directly contrary to the Federal Constitution." See pp. 110,
111.
^ Letters on American Slavery, Preface, p. iii. * Ibid., p. 20.
REV. JOHN RANKIN.
(From a bust by Ellen Eankin Copp, of Chicag-o, Illinois.)
CONTINtnTT OF ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT 307
himself? . . . And have not many of those [slaves] who
have been emancipated in America become wealthy and good
citizens? . . . We are commanded to 'do justly and love
mercy,' and this we ought to do without delay, and leave
the consequences attending it to the control of Him who
gave the command." ^ It has been noted in another place
that Mr. Rankin was for years an active agent of the Un-
derground Railroad, in association with a number of aboli-
tionists of his neighborhood, among whom he was a recognized
leader.^
The idea has somehow gained credence in the general
accounts of the anti-slavery movement that the Garrisonian
movement was one that could scarcely be said to have
had precursors in the earlier agitation ; and the pre-Garrison
abolitionists have been thought of, apparently, as marked by
mild philanthropy, adherence to law and tolerance. It has
been supposed that an interval of inactivity followed upon
the earlier movements, and that the later movement was thus
a thing apart, radically different in its character from any-
thing that had gone before. In view of the evidence brought
together in this volume it is perhaps not too much to say that
a real continuity of development is traceable through the
period with which we have had to do, and that many little
communities throughout the country, under the influences
always at work, had germinated the idea of immediate aboli-
tion, in support of which texts were easily found in the
Bible ; and that thus the way had been prepared for the anti-
slavery ideas and activities of 1830 and the subsequent years.
Mr. Garrison himself "confessed his indebtedness for his
views " of slavery to Bourne's The Booh and Slavery Irrecon-
cilable, next after the Bible itself,^ and in Number 17 of the
first volume of the Liberator appears an extract quoted from
Bourne's work.* It is certain that Garrison was familiar
with the work as early as September 13, 1830,^ and he may
have been so earlier. He arrived at the doctrine during the
1 Letters on American Slavery, pp. 104, 107.
2 Chapter TV, p. 109.
» The Life of Garrison, by his children. Vol. I, p. 306.
« Ibid., postscript to Preface. ' lUd., p. 207.
308 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
summer of 1829, before his association with Lundy at Balti-
more.^ It cannot be determined when Garrison first became
acquainted with the Letters on Slavery of the Rev. John Ran-
kin, but they seem to have had a wide circulation, for about
the year 1825 they had fallen into the hands of the Rev.
Samuel J. May, living at the time in Brooklyn, Connecticut,
and he had read them with interest.^ In the second volume
of the Liberator Garrison republished these letters, and in
after years, on more than one occasion, he acknowledged
himself the " disciple " of their author .^
The outspoken courage characteristic of the new phase into
which the anti-slavery cause passed in 1830 helped to increase
the resistance made in the North to the law for the rendition
of fugitive slaves. The sympathy with the slave now became
vocal in various centres, and made itself heard among the
blacks of the South through the passionate and unguarded
utterances of their masters. The evidence gathered from
surviving abolitionists in the states adjacent to the lakes
shows an increased activity of the Underground Road during
the decade 1830-1840. The removal of the Indians from the
Gulf states and the consequent opening of vast cotton-fields
during the period named led many slaves to flee from the
danger of transportation to the far South.* Under these
circumstances pursuits of runaways became more frequent,
and were often marked by a display of anger on the part of
the pursuing party easily accounted for by the anti-slavery
agitation in the free states. Open interference and rescues
in which both negroes and whites took part became more
common.^ Many persons of respectability, more courageous
than the great majority of their class at that time, not only
enrolled themselves in the new anti-slavery societies, but
made it a part of their duty to engage in the defence of fugi-
tive slaves. Salmon P. Chase often served as counsel for
1 The Life of Garrison, Vol. I, p. 140.
2 Memoir of 8. J. May, by George B. Emerson and others, pp. 76, 78, 87,
139, 140. See also Life of Garrison, "Vol. I, p. 213, foot-note.
« Life of Garrison, Vol. I, pp. 305, 306 ; Vol. Ill, pp. 379, 380.
* G. M. Weston, Progress of Slavery in the United States, p. 22.
* McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 38, 39.
AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW OF 1850 309
the captured runaway during this period, and soon gained
for himself the unenvied title of " attorney-general for fugi-
tive slaves." ^ Other men of talents, position and education
were not behind the rising Ohioan in their protection of the
refugee. A formal organization of Undei'ground Railroad
woi'kers, with Robert Purvis as president, was effected at
Philadelphia in 1838. It is evident that the Underground
Railroad was now developing with rapidity. The conditions
prevailing in the North and South during the decade 1840-
1850 were not less favorable to the escape of slaves, and, in
one particular, were more favorable ; the decision in the
Prigg case in 1842 took away much of the effectiveness of
the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, and thus made pursuit little
less than useless.
About four years before this historic decision was declared,
that is to say, in December, 1838, John Calhoun, of Kentucky,
sought to introduce a resolution in the House looking towards
an enactment making it unlawful for any person to aid fugi-
tive slaves in escaping from their owners, and another making
it unlawful for any person in the non-slaveholding states to
entice slaves from their owners, the prosecution of offenders
against these proposed laws to take place in the courts of the
United States. Objections were made to the introduction
of these resolutions, and Mr. Calhoun was prevented from
getting a reference of the matter to the Committee on the
Judiciary by a vote of 107 to 89.^ When the Prigg decision
came, its political significance was quickly shown in the pas-
sage of laws by various Northern states forbidding their officers
from performing the duties imposed by the act of 1793. From
1842 to 1850, Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania and
Rhode Island passed such laws, and Connecticut, while re-
pealing an earlier law on her statute books as being at the
time unconstitutional, retained the portion of it that restrained
state officers from assisting in the execution of the act.
In the meantime the Southern leaders did not fail to note
the progress of anti-slavery sentiment north of Mason and
^ J. W. Schuckers, The Life and Public Service of Samuel Portland Chase,
p. 52. For portrait see plate facing p. 254.
2 Congressional Globe, Twenty-fifth Congress, Third Session, p. 34.
310 mSTDEKGEOUND KAILROAD
Dixon's line. This was not less manifest in the formation
of the Liberty party in the early years of the decade 1840-
1850, than in the legislative and other opposition to the
Fugitive Slave Law. Indeed, so marked an impression had
been made upon the minds and sympathies of anti-slavery
men by the b?'ave and successful flight of slaves, that a Lib-
erty convention at Peterboro, New York, in January, 1842,
issued an address to slaves, declaring that slavery was to be
" tortured even unto death," advising them to seek liberty
by flight, and assuring them that the abolitionist knew no
more grateful employment than that of helping escaping
slaves to Canada. In August of the following year the
national convention of the new party, comprising nearly a
thousand delegates from all the free states except New Hamp-
shire, made the disavowal of the fugitive recovery clause
of the Constitution a part of the party platform, voting by a
decisive majority " to regard and treat the third clause of the
Constitution, whenever applied to the case of a fugitive slave,
as utterly null and void ; and consequently as forming no part
of the Constitution of the United States whenever we are
called upon or sworn to support it." ^ About the time of the
announcement of this principle, Mr. Garrison issued in behalf
of the American Anti-Slavery Society an address to the
bondmen of the South, in which they were promised deliver-
ance from their chains, and were encouraged to run away
from their masters. " If you come to us, and are hungry,"
ran the address, " we will feed you ; if thirsty, we will give
you drink ; if naked, we will clothe you ; if sick, we will
minister to your necessities ; if in prison, we will visit you ;
if you need a hiding-place from the face of the pursuer, we
will provide one that even bloodhounds will not scent out."^
Such open attacks upon the property rights of planters and
slave-traders must have been extremely aggravating to South-
erners, and, of course, contributed to bring the question of a
more effective Fugitive Slave Law again under the consider-
ation of Congress, notwithstanding the fact that a large share
of that body's attention was occupied during the period from
1 Wilson, Bise and Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. I, pp. 552, 563.
''Ibid., p. 563.
SLAVE LAW OF 1850 IN CONGRESS 311
1844 to 1848 with matters connected with the annexation of
Texas, the Mexican War and the settlement of the Oregon
boundary dispute. In 1847 the legislature of Kentucky pre-
sented a petition to Congress urging the importance of new
laws so framed as to enable the citizens of slaveholding states
to reclaim their negroes when they had absconded into the
free states. This resulted in a bill reported in the Senate,
but the bill never got beyond its second reading. Two years
later an attempt was made in the House to secure legislation
for the same object, but the committee to whom the matter
was referred seems never to have reported.
At intervals more or less frequent, during a period of more
than fifty years, the South had been demanding of Congress
adequate protection for its human property against the depre-
dations of those Northerners who rejoiced in the work of
secret emancipation. The efforts of the slaveholding section
for a stricter fugitive recovery law had uniformly failed down
to 1850, and it seems altogether likely that the success won
in the year named would not have been realized,^ if a bill
intended to meet the needs of slave-owners had not been
made an essential part of the great scheme of compromise
for the adjustment of the differences threatening the perpetu-
ity of the Union at the time.^ The measure that was finally
adopted, as a part of the programme of compromise, was one
introduced into the Senate by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in the
early part of the fii-st session of the Thirty-first Congress. It
' "The wonder is how such an Act came to pass, even hy so lean a vote
as it received ; for it was voted for by less than half of the Senate, and by
six less than the number of senators from the slave states alone. It is a
wonder how it passed at all ; and the wonder increases on knowing that, of
the small number that voted for it, many were against it, and merely went
along with those who had constituted themselves the particular guardians of
the rights of the slave states, and claimed a lead in all that concerned them.
These self-instituted guardians were permitted to have their own way, some
voting with them unwillingly, others not voting at all. It was a part of the
plan of ' compromise and pacification ' which was then deemed essential to
save the Union ; under the fear of danger to the Union on one hand, and the
charms of pacification and compromise on the other, a few heated spirits got
the control and had things their own way." Benton's Thirty Years^ View,
Vol. n, p. 780.
2 See Rhodes' History of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 130-136, for a dis-
cussion of the question whether the Union was in danger in 1860.
312 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
was aimed, said its author, at evils " more deeply seated and
widely extended than those " his colleague recognized. " The
state from whence I came," continued Mr. Mason, " and the
states of Kentucky and Maryland, being those states of
the Union that border on the free states, have had ample
experience, not only of the difficulties, but of the actual im-
possibility of reclaiming a fugitive when he once gets within
the boundaries of a non-slaveholding state." ^ Henry Clay,
the author of the Compromise, whose disposition had been to
lean to the Northern rather than to the Southern side of the
general controversy, expressed the irritation of his own state,
Kentucky, when he said concerning the question of fugitive
slaves : " Upon this subject I do think that we have just and
serious cause of complaint against the free States. I think
they have failed in fulfilling a great obligation, and the failure
is precisely upon one of those subjects which in its nature is
most irritating and inflammatory to those who live in slave
States. ... It is our duty to make the law more effective ;
and I shall go with the senator from the South who goes
furthest in making penal laws and imposing the heaviest
sanctions for the recovery of fugitive slaves and the restora-
tion of them to their owners." ^ Delaware and Missouri had
grievances similar to those of Kentucky and other border
states. The region constituted by these states suffered heavy
losses through the operations of the Underground Railroad.^
That the cotton states also lost considerable property every
year by the escape of slaves to the North appears from a
statement of Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi: "Ne-
groes do escape from Mississippi frequently," he said, " and
the boats constantly passing by our long line of river frontier
furnish great facility to get into Ohio ; and when they do
escape it is with great difficulty that they are recovered;
indeed, it seldom occurs that they are restored. We, though
1 Congressional Globe, Thirty-first Congress, First Session, Appendix,
p. 1583.
^ Life and Speeches of Henry Clay, Vol. II, pp. 641, 643. The speech
from which the above quotations are made was delivered Feb. 5 and 6, 1850.
' Congressional Qlobe, Thirty-first Congress, Second Session, Appendix,
p. 1051 ; MoDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 31.
SLAVE LAW OF 1850 IN CONGRESS 313
less than the border states, are seriously concerned in this
question. . . . Those who, like myself, live on that great
highway of the West — the Mississippi River — and are most
exposed, have a present and increasing interest in the matter.
We desire laws that shall be effective, and at the same time
within the constitutional power of Congress ; such as shall
be adequate, and be secured by penalties the most stringent
which can be imposed." ^ Calhoun admitted that discontent
was universal in the South, and declared that conciliation
could only come when the North consented to meet certain con-
ditions, one of which was the restoration of fugitive slaves.
Many of the speeches contained suggestions and prophecies
of disunion. One of these, made by Pratt, of Maryland,
called the attention of the Senate to a recent address deliv-
ered by Mr. Seward, of New York, before an assembly of
Ohioans, in which he urged them to " extend a cordial wel-
come to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door,
and defend him as you wovXd your household gods." ^ Another
made by Yulee, of Florida, informed the Senate of a conven-
tion then sitting at Cazenovia, New York, attended by more
than thirty runaway slaves, and held for the purpose of
devising ways and means of escape for blacks. The language
of the address to slaves issued by the convention was not
calculated to reassure slave-owners. In part it ran : " Includ-
ing our children, we number here in Canada 20,000 souls.
The population in the free States are, with few exceptions,
the fugitive slave's friends.
" We are poor. We can do little more for your deliverance
than pray to God for it. We will furnish you with pocket
compasses, and in the dark nights you can run away. We
cannot furnish you with weapons ; some of us are not inclined
to carry arms ; but if you can get them, take them, and, be-
fore you go back into bondage, use them, if you are obliged
to take life. The slaveholders would not hesitate to kill
you, rather than not take you back into bondage.
"Numerous as the escapes from slavery are, they would
still be more so, were it not for the master's protection of the
1 Congressional Crlobe, Thirty-first Congress, First Session, Appendix,
p. 1615. ^ Ibid., p. 1592.
314 UNDEEGROUND RAILROAD
rights of property. You even hesitate to take the slowest of
his horses; but we say take the fastest. Pack up provi-
sions and clothes ; and either get a key, or force the lock, and
get his money and start." ^ In view of such proceedings,
openly conducted without hindrance, the Senator appealed to
his auditors and to the country to consider whether "this
Union can long continue ? " ^
In his famous 7th-of-March speech, Webster freely admitted
that the complaints of the South in regard to the non-rendition
of fugitive slaves were just, and that the North had fallen short
of her duty. He therefore decided to support Mason's Fugi-
tive Slave Bill, although he wanted it amended in certain par-
ticulars, and sought especially to have in it a clause securing
trial by jury to the refugee in case he denied owing service
to the claimant. He criticised the abolition societies of the
North, and said he thought their operations for the last
twenty years had produced "nothing good or valuable."
The press of the South he found to be as violent as that of
the other section. There was, he decided, " no solid griev-
ance presented by the South within the redress of the gov-
ernment, . . . but the want of a proper regard to the
injunction of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitive
slaves." ^
Under the combined championship of Webster, Clay and
Calhoun, and to bring about better feeling between the two
parts of the country, which in the eyes of many contempora-
ries seemed on the verge of splitting asunder, the new Fugitive
Slave Law was passed by the Senate, August 26, 1850, and
by the House a few days later. By the signature of Presi-
dent Fillmore the measure became a law, September 18.
The vote by which the new law had been passed through
the two Houses of Congress did not betoken a disposition at
the North to meet the obligations it imposed upon that sec-
tion. Only three of the senators representing free states
voted for the measure. These were Dodge and Jones, of
Indiana, and Sturgeon, of Pennsylvania. Among the one
1 Congressional Olobe, Thirty-first Congress, First Session, Appendix,
pp. 1622, 1623.
2 Ibid. 8 Webster'." Works, Vol. V, pp. 354, 355, 357, 358, 361.
SLAVE LA.W OF 1850 IN CONGRESS 315
hundred and thirty-six members from the Northern states in
the House, only thirty-one voted with the slaveholders.
Three of the thirty-one were Whigs, the rest Democrats.^
Jefferson Davis showed that he comprehended the true situa-
tion when he said, during the following session of Congress,
that the history of the law proved that it would not furnish
the needed security, because the Northern majority did not
pass the bill, but merely allowed the Southern minority to
pass it, and because the measure had to be executed in the
North.^ This view of the case seems not to have been taken
by those representing the border slave states. The compre-
hensive character of Clay's scheme was favorable to the
incorporation in it of a measure stringent enough to suit the
most aggrieved without exciting the opposition such a meas-
ure would have called out if presented by itself.
Whatever the expectations of the various slaveholding
states with regard to the recovery of their runaways under
the new law, Joshua R. Giddings, himself an enthusiastic
agent of the Underground Railroad and a better judge of
the real convictions of the North than Webster, took the
earliest occasion to give utterance to the sentiments of the
people upon whom depended the success or failure of the law
of 1850. Giddings did not delay, nor did he mince matters.
In the earliest days of the session following that in which
the compromise had been passed he denounced the Fugitive
Slave Law and predicted its failure. Concerning the citizens
of his own state, he said : " The freemen of Ohio will never
turn out to chase the panting fugitive. They will never be
metamorphosed into bloodhounds, to track him to his hiding-
place, and seize and drag him out, and deliver him to his
tormentors. Rely upon it they will die first. . . . Let no
man teU me there is no higher law than this fugitive bill.
We feel there is a law of right, of justice, of freedom, im-
planted in the breast of every intelligent human being, that
1 Von Hoist, Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
Vol. rv, pp. 18, 19. The hundred and thirty-six Northern members com-
prised seventy-six Whigs and fifty Democrats.
2 Congressional Globe, Thirty-flrst Congress, Second Session, Appendix,
p. 324. See also Von Hoist's work, Vol. IV, p. 27.
316 UNDEEGROTIND RAILROAD
bids him look with scorn upon this libel on all that is called
law." 1
That slave-owners counted on deriving benefits from the
law appears from the great number of attempts at once made
to reclaim runaways, and the frequent prosecutions of those
guilty of facilitating their escape. The period sometimes
designated the " era of slave-hunting " began in the North.
Slave-owners and their agents entered vigorously upon the
chase, and a larger number of communities in the free states
than ever before were invaded by men engaged in the dis-
gusting business of capturing blacks, intelligent and ambi-
tious enough to seek their own liberty. Villages, towns and
cities from Iowa to Maine, but especially in the middle states,
witnessed scenes calculated to awaken the popular detestation
of slavery as it had never been awakened before. Pitiable
distress fell upon the fugitive settlers in the North and did
much to quicken consciences everywhere. The capture of a
fugitive in the place where he had been living invariably
caused an outburst of indignation; and if the victim were
not rescued before his removal by his captors a sum of money
was raised if possible, and his freedom was purchased if that
could be done. All of these circumstances contributed to
increase the traffic along the numerous and tortuous lines of
the Underground Railroad, which, according to the testimony
of surviving abolitionists, did its most thriving business in all
parts of the North during the decade from 1850 to 1860.
The marked increase in the number of negroes seeking aid
on their way to Canada at the outset of this period was due
to the flight of many of the fugitive settlers from their accus-
tomed haunts in the free states ; but the supply later on must
be attributed to the ease of communication through various
channels by which slaves were every day learning of the
body of abolitionists eager to help them to freedom. The
readiness of the Northern people to act in opposition to
the law arose from their abhorrence of a measure that they
considered unrighteous and cruel, and from their resentment
1 Congressional Globe, Thirty-flrst Congress, Second Session, pp. 15, 16.
Von Hoist, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, Vol.
IV, p. 15.
ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW OF 1850 317
at the requirement that they must join in the hunt, so that
the fugitive might be promptly enslaved. ^ The wide-spread
opposition to the law led to prosecutions of underground
workers in various places, and these prosecutions greatly
helped to keep the slavery question before the attention of
the country, despite the wishes and endeavors of the politi-
cians who strove to silence the issue.^
The record of the year 1851 illustrates the character of the
general contest, which had already set in before the enact-
ment of the new law, but which assumed thenceforth an
importance it had never had before. Early in the year Sha-
drach was seized in Boston, carried before the commissioner,
and remanded to custody, but was rescued by a crowd of
negroes and hurried off to Canada. Later Sims was caught
and confined in the court-house until he was marched to
Long Wharf under guard of three hundred policemen. Wil-
Uam and Ellen Craft, fugitives from Georgia, were tracked
to Boston, but, aided by Theodore Parker and other faithful
friends, succeeded in escaping to England. Other notable
instances of pursuit occurred at Chicago, Illinois, Pough-
keepsie. New York, and Westchester and Wilkesbarre, Penn-
sylvania. At Philadelphia a free negro was arrested, proved
a slave by perjured testimony and taken to Maryland; fortu-
nately he gained his liberty again by the refusal of the
planter to whom he was delivered to identify him as his
lost property. At Buffalo an alleged fugitive was released
on writ of habeas corpus by Judge Conkling. At the hear-
ing that followed the lack of evidence caused the judge to
discharge the prisoner, and he was soon in Canada. In the
attempt of the Maryland slave-owner, Gorsuch, and his party,
to recover certain runaway slaves from Christiana, Pennsyl-
vania, Gorsuch was killed and his son seriously wounded,
while the fugitives managed to escape. This affair caused
intense excitement, not only in Pennsylvania, but through-
1 MoDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 63.
3 "These prosecutions attracted more attention to the slavery question
in a few months than the abolitionists had been able to arouse in twenty
years." Professor Edward Channing, The United States of America, 1765-
1865, p. 241.
318 UNDEKGKOUND RAILROAD
out the country. Another case resulting in the death of one
of the parties concerned grew out of the kidnapping of a free
negro girl from the house of a Mr. Miller, in Nottingham,
Pennsylvania ; Miller succeeded in rescuing the girl, but he
was mysteriously murdered before he reached home. Near
the close of the year 1851 Jerry McHenry was arrested in
Syracuse, New York, while an agricultural fair and a conven-
tion of the Liberty party were in progress in that city. The
attempted escape and the recapture of the negro wrought up
tlie crowd to a state of intense feeling, which was not re-
lieved until the fugitive was rescued and sent to Canada.^
There were many other instances in which communities were
given the opportunity to show their spirit in the defence of
helpless bondmen.
The political leaders and the administration, who were
responsible for the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law,
were not willing to see its provisions thus trampled under
foot. Upon the reassembling of Congress in December, 1850,
President Fillmore expressed himself in his message as pleased
with the compromise measures, although, he admitted, they
had not yet realized their purpose fully. "It would be
strange," he said, " if they had been received with immediate
approbation by people and states prejudiced and heated by
the exciting controversies of their representatives." He never-
theless had faith that the various enactments would be gen-
erally sustained. The tinge of doubt in the communication
of the President pretty certainly referred to the fierce denun-
ciations of the Fugitive Slave Law recently uttered by mass-
meetings in various parts of the Northern states, and to
several cases of resistance where the execution of the law had
been attempted. His reassuring expressions voiced his own
hope and that of the political magnates ; and he meant also,
perhaps, to carry assurance to the South. Some balm seemed
necessary, for the Georgia convention in accepting the com-
promise as a " permanent adjustment of the sectional contro-
versy," voted, "That it is the deliberate opinion of this
convention that upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive
- F. W. Seward, Seioard at Washington as Senator and Secretary of State,
1891, Vol. I, pp. 169, 170. McDougaU, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 44, 47-51, 68, 59.
OPEN RESISTANCE TO THE LAW OF 1850 319
Slave Bill by tlie proper authorities depends tlie preservation
of our mucli-loved Union." ^
The open resistance to the law upon several occasions in
1851 brought opportunities to the administration to exert
itself in favor of the faithful execution of the law. After
the rescue of Shadrach from the United States marshal on
February 15, much excitement existed, especially at the
centre of government. The President immediately issued a
proclamation commanding all civil and military officers, and
calling on all good citizens, to "aid in quelling this and
similar combinations " and to assist in capturing the persons
that had set the law at defiance. The Senate, after debate,
adopted a resolution requesting the President to lay before it
information relating to the rescue, and inquiring whether
further legislation was desirable. This request was promptly
complied with by the executive. Then Clay, the author of
the resolution, urged that the President be invested with
extraordinary power to enforce the law, but failed to gain
substantial support for his proposition . In the meantime five
of the rescuers of Shadrach were indicted and tried, but
owing to the disagreement of the jury none of them were
convicted. The energetic action of the administration and
its supporters had apparently accomplished no result, except
to demonstrate the difficulties with which the enforcement
of the Fugitive Slave Act was encompassed.
The same lesson was taught in two important instances'
toward the end of this year, when the government under-
took to carry the law into effect. The Gorsuch tragedy at
Christiana, Pennsylvania, led the President to order the
United States marshal, district attorney and commissioner
from Philadelphia, with forty-five United States marines from
the navy-yard, to assist in arresting those supposed to have
been engaged in the fight. The fugitives had escaped and
could not be recovered, but a number of other persons, most
of whom were colored, were arrested, taken to Philadelphia,
and indicted for treason. But the efforts of the authorities
to convict were unavailing, and the prisoners went scot free.^
1 Boston Atlas, Dec. 17, 1850.
2 For references see Appendix B, 53, Christiana case, p. 373.
320 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Within a few days after the passage of the Fugitive Slave
Law in September of the previous year, the spirit of resistance
in Syracuse, New York, had manifested itself in public meet-
ings at which the law was denounced and a Vigilance Com-
mittee organized.^ In the early part of June following,
Daniel Webster, who was travelling extensively through the
Northern states and exerting his personal and oflficial influence
to secure obedience to the law, visited Syracuse and made a
speech. In the course of his remarks he insisted in no con-
ciliatory terms that the law must be enforced. He said,
" Those persons in this city who mean to oppose the execution
of the Fugitive Slave Law are traitors ! traitors ! ! traitors ! ! !
This law ought to be obeyed, and it will be enforced — yes,
it shall be enforced, and that, too, in the midst of the next
anti-slavery convention, if then there shall be any occasion to
enforce it."
As if in fulfillment of this prediction of the Secretary of
State, on October 1, 1851, a day when a convention of the
Liberty party was in progress, an attempt was made to capt-
ure one Jerry McHenry, an undoubted fugitive; but the
Vigilance Committee, under efficient leadership, succeeded in
rescuing him out of the hands of his captors. At this out-
come there was much exultation among the anti-slavery
people, as also when later the prosecution instituted against
eighteen of the rescuers ended in a failure to convict. It is
Vorthy of note that Seward was the first to sign the bond of
those indicted; and that Gerrit Smith, then a member of
Congress, made a defiant speech in the fall of 1852 in Canan-
daigua, where the trial of one of the rescuers was going on.^
Such incidents, together with the aggravation caused by
the removal of fugitives successfully seized, made it plain
that the compromise was not the " finality " that the poli-
ticians declared it to be; and that the Whig and Demo-
cratic parties chose to decree it in their national platforms in
the summer of 1852. The principles of political opposition
1 S. J. May, Some Recollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 349.
" Ibid., pp. 373-384 ; Frothingham, Life of Gerrit Smith, p. 117 ;
McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, pp. 48, 49 ; Wilson, Bise and Fall of the Slave
Power, Vol. II, pp. 327, 328.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN 321
determined by the conditions of the time were uttered by the
convention of the Free Soil party, with which many of the
underground operators were now allied, in the words : " No
more slave states, no more slave territories, no nationalized
slavery, and no national legislation for the extradition of
slaves." The issue of the presidential campaign in the elec-
tion of Pierce, a compromise Democrat, marks only a tempo-
rary disturbance in the progress of sentiment, due to the
desire of the country to have rest, the disinclination of many
Whigs to support their own candidate, General Winfield
Scott, and the policy of acquiescence he represented ; and
the solidarity of action among the Democrats, who were
generally satisfied both with their principles and their
candidate.
As it was the Fugitive Slave Law that brought the North
face to face with slavery nationalized, so it was the Fugitive
Slave Law that occasioned, in the spring of 1852, the produc-
tion of Uncle TorrCs Odbin, a novel the great political signifi-
cance of which has been generally acknowledged. The
observations and experience that made possible for Mrs. Har-
riet Beecher Stowe the writing of this remarkable book were
gained by her while living at Cincinnati, where she was
enabled to study the effects of slavery. While thus a resi-
dent on the borders of Kentucky, she numbered among her
friends slaveholders on the one side of the Ohio River and
abolitionists on the other. At the time of her first trip
across the Ohio in 1833, she visited an estate, which is de-
scribed as that of Colonel Shelby in Uncle Tom's Cabin}
Her associations and sympathies brought home to her the
personal aspects of slavery, and her house on Walnut Hills
early become a station on the Underground Railroad, remain-
ing so doubtless till 1850, when she removed with her
husband. Professor Calvin Stowe, to Brunswick, Maine.
During the intervening years she was unconsciously glean-
ing incidents and scenes and discovering characters for her
future book. The woful experiences of her midnight
visitors, whose hunger for freedom rose superior to every
other need, awoke her deepest compassion, and the neighbor-
1 C. E. stowe, Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, pp. 71, 72.
T
322 UNDERGROUiro RAILROAD
hood in whicli she lived, nay, even her own household, sup-
plied the circumstances and adventures depicted in the lives
of some of her most admirable characters. Mrs. Stowe her-
self declared Uncle Tom's Cabin to be "a collection and
arrangement of real incidents, — of actions really performed,
of words and expressions really uttered, — grouped together
with reference to a general result, in the same manner that
the mosaic artist groups his fragments of various stones into
one general picture." ^ For example she points out that the
service of Senator Bird in the incident of the novel in which
Eliza escapes from her pursuers Tom Locker and Marks had
its counterpart in the service rendered a negro girl in her
own employ by Professor Stowe and his brother-in-law,
Henry Ward Beecher, in 1839. This girl was secretly con-
veyed northward by her escorts a distance of twelve miles
to the house of John Van Zandt, another station-keeper of
the Underground Road; and Van Zandt it was who "per-
formed the good deed which the author in her story ascribes
to Van Tromp."2 Concerning the leading Quaker charac-
ter in her book Mrs. Stowe says : " The character of Rachel
Halliday was a real one, but she has passed away to her
reward. Simeon Halliday, calmly risking fine and imprison-
ment for his love to God and man, has had in this country
many counterparts among the sect. The writer had in mind,
at the time of writing, the scenes in the trial of Thomas
Garet, of Wilmington, Delaware, for the crime of hiring a
hack to convey a mother and four children from Newcastle
jail to Wilmington, a distance of five miles." ^ The thrilling
adventures of Eliza in escaping across the Ohio River with
her child in her arms as the ice was breaking up was an
actual occurrence that took place fifty miles above Cincin-
nati, at Ripley, an initial station of an important underground
route.*
1 A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, p. 5 ; Charles Dudley Warner in The
Atlantic Monthly, September, 1896, p. 312.
" A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, p. 23 ; C. E. Stowe, Life of Sarriet
Beecher iStowe, p. 93 ; Uncle Tom's Cabin ; Howe, Historical Collections
of Ohio, Vol. II, pp. 102, 103 ; J. W. Shuckers, Life of Chase, p. 53.
° A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, p. 54.
* Beminiscences of Levi Coffin, pp. 147-151 ; Howe, Historical Collections
POLITICAL IMPORTANCE OP THE NOVEL 323
By tlie combination of such elements under the crystalliz-
ing influence of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Mrs. Stowe
made her story. Intent on having the people of the North
understand what the " system " was, about which so many
seemed apathetic, she set to work in response to appeals to
her to take up her pen. The result, wholly unexpected, was
the production of a book that did for the whole population of
the free states what the Underground Railroad had been
doing for a part only : the author made real the sin of slavery
to the consciences of freemen, by an object-lesson in the pos-
sible evils of slavery and the desire of the slave to be free.
In Harriet Beecher Stowe the thousands of fugitive slaves
that had been unwittingly acting as missionaries in the cause
of freedom through the earlier years found at last a champion
whose words carried their touching story to the multitudes.
The disheartening circumstances under which her novel had
been composed and the exhausted condition in which the
author found herself at its conclusion did not permit her to
look for anything but the failure of her undertaking. As
she finished the last proof-sheets " it seemed to her that there
was no hope; that nobody would hear, nobody would read,
nobody would pity; that this frightful system, which had
already pursued its victims into the free States, might at last
even threaten them in Canada."^ But the success of the
book was immediate. Three thousand copies were sold on
the first day of publication, and more than three hundred
thousand in this country within the year.^
The political effect of the novel has been disparaged by a
few writers, because it did not cause anti-slavery gains in the
national election occurring in the fall of 1852. Thus George
Ticknor wrote in December of that year, " It deepens the
horror of servitude, but it does not affect a single vote."^
of Ohio, Vol. n, p. 104 ; see also article on "Early Cincinnati," by Judge
Joseph Cox in the Cincinnati Times-Star, Peb. 6, 1891 ; a report of " The
Story of Eliza," as told by the Rev. S. G. W. Rankin, printed in the Boston
Transcript, Nov. 30, 1895, an article on Harriet Beecher Stowe, in the
Cincinnati Unqnirer, Nov. 3, 1895, p. 17.
^ Quoted by Charles Dudley Warner in The Atlantic Monthly, Septem-
ber, 1896, p. 315.
" Ibid. » Life of George Ticknor, Vol. I, p. 286.
324 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
This was certainly true, for the mass of Northerners were
resting in the belief that a substantial political settlement had
been reached in the great compromise. It was not to be
expected that this belief, which was the outcome of weeks of
strenuous discussion, was to be easily tossed aside under the
emotional stimulus of a novel. The immediate effect of
Uncle Torris Cabin as a political agency lay in the renewal on
a vast scale of the consideration of the question of slavery,
which the compromise had been thought by so many to have
settled. Its remote effect, which did not show itself until
the latter part of the decade 1850-1860 has been best ex-
plained by the historian, James Ford Rhodes. This writer
says, " The mother's opinion was a potent factor in politics
between 1852 and 1860, and boys in their teens in the one
year were voters in the other. It is often remarked that
previous to the war the Republican party attracted the great
majority of school-boys, and that the first voters were an
important factor in its final success; . . . the youth of
America whose first ideas on slavery were formed by reading
Uncle TorrCs Cabin were ready to vote with the party whose
existence was based on opposition to an extension of the
great evil." ^ They were also ready to fight for the cause of
union and of freedom in 1861.
Soon after the publication of Mrs. Stowe's book, Sumner
began his movement in the Senate to secure the repeal of
the Fugitive Slave Law. In May, 1852, he presented a memo-
rial from the Society of Friends in New England, asking for
its repeal; 2 in July he offered a resolution instructing the
Committee on Judiciary to report a bill for this purpose;^
and in August he sought to secure his end by proposing an
amendment to the civil and diplomatic appropriations bill. *
In the speech made at the time he presented this amendment,
a speech said to rank with that of Webster on the Compromise
in 1850 in the popular interest it aroused, Sumner pointed
to the example of Washington, who let one of his slaves
remain unmolested in New Hampshire rather than " excite a
1 History of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 284, 285.
" Peirce, Life of Sumner, Vol. Ill, p. 283.
» Ibid., p. 289. 1 Ibid., p. 292.
SUMNER ON THE APPEAL OF FUGITIVES 325
mob or riot, or even uneasy sensations in the minds of well-
disposed citizens." The execution of the Fugitive Slave Law,
he asked Congress to note, involved mobs, cruelty and vio-
lence everywhere its enforcement was tried. The wonderful
reception given Uncle Tom's Cabin was, he thought, an ex-
pression of the true public sentiment. " A woman, inspired
by Christian genius, enters the lists, like another Joan of Arc,
and with marvellous powers sweeps the chords of the popu-
lar heart. Now melting to tears, and now inspiring to rage,
her work everywhere touches the conscience, and makes the
slave-hunter more hateful."^ He saw the import of the
appeal of fugitive slaves to Northern communities for pro-
tection and liberty. " For them every sentiment of humanity
is aroused. Rude and ignorant they may be, but in their very
efforts for freedom they claim kindred with all that is noble
in the past. Romance has no stories of more thrilling inter-
est; classical antiquity has preserved no examples of advent-
ure and trial more worthy of renown. They are among the
heroes of our age. Among them are those whose names will
be treasured in the annals of their race. By eloquent voice
they have done much to make their wrongs known, and to
secure the respect of the world. History will soon lend her
avenging pen. Proscribed by you during life, they will pro-
scribe you through all time. Sir, already judgment is begin-
ning ; a righteous public sentiment palsies your enactment." ^
Through his denunciation of the law, his justification of
those who aided the fugitive, and his recognition of the power
of the fugitive's appeal, Sumner may be said to have become the
representative and spokesman in the Senate of fugitive slaves
and their Northern friends. How closely he identified him-
self with their cause is indicated by his determined efforts
1 Peirce, Life of Sumner, Vol. in, pp. 296, 297 ; Congressional Globe,
Vol. XXV, p. 1112.
2 Congressional Globe, Vol. XXV, p. 1112 ; Peirce, Life of Sumner, Vol.
m, p. 297.
In a public speech made in 1850 Mr. Garrison had this to say, " Who are
among our ablest speakers ? Who are the best qualified to address the public
mind on the subject of slavery ? Your fugitive slaves, — your Douglasses,
Browns and Bibbs, — who are astonishing aU with the cogency of their words
and the power of their reasoning." Life of Garrison, Vol. HI, p. 311.
326 IMDERGROUND EAILROAB
to secure the repeal of the obnoxious law, efforts repeated in
July, 1854, and February, 1855, and carried by him to a
successful issue in 1864.^
The action of public sentiment in the Northern states,
which, he said, palsied the Fugitive Slave Law, was accom-
panied, during the decade from 1850 to 1860, by tokens of
open violation of the law, defiant resolutions adopted by mass-
meetings, and obstructional legislation passed by various free
states ; the spirit of nullification was thus aroused in many
localities north of Mason and Dixon's line. The demands of
character and humanity had long been obeyed by many men
and women for whom any compromise involving the continu-
ance in slavery of their fellow-men was a dreadful crime.
These persons had refused to yield obedience to that statute
which in their belief was subversive of the "higher law."
Under the action of causes that have been discussed in
earlier chapters, the sentiment that had developed the secret
and illicit traffic along numerous lines of the Underground
Railroad became more obtrusive and less regardful of con-
gressional legislation. Besides participating in the pubhc
and legitimate activities of anti-slavery societies, and sharing
in the organization of the Liberty and Free Soil parties, the
abolitionists formed vigilance committees in various communi-
ties, the avowed purpose of which was to thwart the Fugitive
Slave Act; and while these bodies held their meetings in
secret and guarded the names of their members, it was often
a matter of common report in those localities that certain
well-known men of the neighborhood were active members.
It was the Vigilance Committee of Syracuse that rescued
Jerry McHenry from custody of the officers, in the presence
of a great crowd ; and the leaders in the affair, Gerrit Smith,
Charles A. Wheaton and Samuel J. May, far from seeking
oblivion, published an acknowledgment in the newspapers
that they had aided all they could in the rescue of Jerry,
were ready for trial, and would rest their defence on the
" unconstitutionality and extreme wickedness " of the Fugi-
tive Slave Law. None of these men were tried. The citizens
177
1 Peirce, Life of Sumner, Vol. Ill, p. 309, foot-note ; Vol. IV, pp. 71, 175-
7
SPIRIT OF NtTLLIFICATION IN THE NOETH 327
of Onondaga County held a mass-convention in approval of
the liberation of the negro, and unanimously adopted resolu-
tions justifying and applauding the act.^
From this time on till the outbreak of the Civil War bold
and open opposition to the authority of the federal law is a
purpose not to be mistaken or overlooked. The state reports
of the Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Anti-Slavery societies
boasted of the steadily increasing numbers of fugitives aided
by abolitionists at many centres, and heaped reproaches on
the judges and commissioners that gave decisions adverse to
runaways.^ Fugitive slave cases were stubbornly contested
in the courts on the ground that the law of 1850 was uncon-
stitutional. The series of cases in which the law was sub-
jected to the penetrating criticism of some of the ablest
lawyers in the country is a long and interesting one ; nothing
in the history of the times more clearly shows the effect of
the Underground Railroad in rousing ever-widening indigna-
tion at the hunt for fugitives.^
In the spring of 1854 two cases, one in Wisconsin and the
other in Massachusetts, served to show the pitch to which
the spirit of resistance among the most responsible citizens
could rise in both the West and the East. On March 10,
1854, Joshua Glover, who was living near Racine, Wisconsin,
was arrested as a fugitive slave by United States deputy
marshals and the claimant, B. W. Garland, of St. Louis.
After a severe struggle Glover was knocked down, placed in
a wagon, driven to Milwaukee, and there lodged in jail.
The news of the capture reached Racine in a few hours, and
a popular meeting, larger than ever before held in the town,
assembled on the court-house square to take action. At this
meeting it was resolved to secure Glover a fair trial in Wis-
consin; and it was voted, "That inasmuch as the Senate of
the United States has repealed all compromises adopted by
the Congress of the United States,* we, as citizens of Wis-
' S. J. May, Some Recollections of our Anti- Slavery Conflict, pp. 380, 381.
Mr. May says another convention was held ten days later to condemn the
action of the rescuers, and did so, but not without dissent.
' See the reports after 1850. ' For selected cases see Appendix B, p. 372.
* The Kansas-Nebraska legislation, repealing the Missouri Compromise of
1820, which was at this time before Congress, is here referred to.
328 TJNDERGEOmro RAILROAD
consin, are justified in declaring, and do declare, the slave-
catching law of 1850 disgraceful and also repealed." This
was but one of many nullifying resolutions adopted about
this time in various parts of the North, although most of the
resolutions were somewhat less extreme in statement.^
At an afternoon meeting the deliberations ended in the
decision of about a hundred citizens of Racine to take boat at
once for Milwaukee. Upon arrival this delegation found the
latter city in an uproar. A meeting of five thousand persons
had already appointed a Committee of Vigilance to see that
Glover had a fair trial, and this demonstration had led the
authorities to call for the local militia to preserve order ; but
the militia did not appear. Such was now the temper of the
crowd that it could be satisfied with nothing less than the
immediate release of the prisoner. Glover was therefore
demanded, but, as he was not forthcoming, the jail door was
battered in, the negro brought out, placed in a wagon and
forwarded to Canada by the Underground Railroad. The
act of the rescuers was indorsed by the public sentiment of
the state ; with but few exceptions justified by the news-
papers. Among the resolutions passed by mass-meetings
held to take action against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, then
pending in Congress, there was usually one thanking the
rescuers for their conduct.
Remembering with satisfaction the deliverance of Jerry, a
special convention assembled at Syracuse, New York, on
March 22, 1854, and sent a congratulatory message to Mil-
waukee and Racine, offering to join them and all the sister
cities of the North in a " holy confederacy, which . . .
shall swear that no broken-hearted fugitive shall ever again
be consigned to slavery from the North, under the accursed
act of 1850." A state convention met at Milwaukee, April
13 and 14, which was attended by delegates from all the
populated districts. This assembly adopted a number of
resolutions, several of which were quotations from the Vir-
ginia and Kentucky resolutions, including the famous one
1 Vroman Mason on "The Fugitive Slave Law in Wisconsin, with Refer-
ence to Nullification Sentiment," in the Proceedings of the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin, 1895, pp. 122, 123.
GLOATER RESCUE IN "WISCONSIN 329
declaring " that, as in other cases of compact among parties
having no common judge, each party has an equal right to
judge for itself, as well of infractions, as of the mode and
measure of redress." The Fugitive Slave Law was pro-
nounced unconstitutional, and aid was promised the rescuers
of Glover.
It is interesting to note that at this convention a state
league was also formed, which has been called a forerunner
of the Republican party in Wisconsin.
The Supreme Court of the state was soon given an oppor-
tunity to place itself on record with regard to the validity
of the federal law. The case of one of the rescuers, Sherman
M. Booth, came before it for decision. In passing judgment
the court showed itself to be in line with the sentiment
of the state, for it declared the act of 1850 unconstitutional ;
the principal grounds assigned were the absence of congres-
sional power to legislate on the subject of the surrender
of fugitives from labor, the improper conferring of judicial
authority upon commissioners, and the viciousness of depriv-
ing a person of his liberty 'without due process of law.'
Booth was, of course, discharged. But the matter was not
dropped here. The United States District Court now ob-
tained jurisdiction of the case ; the jury found the prisoner
guilty, and the judge sentenced him to imprisonment for
one month, and to pay a fine of |1,000 and the costs of
prosecution — in all, $1,451. The news of the conviction
caused great excitement ; denunciatory meetings were again
the order of the day; and money was subscribed for the
further defence of the prisoners. Some of the resolutions
passed at this time did not stop short of asserting the readi-
ness of the people to maintain their cause with the bayonet.
Application was made to the Supreme Court of the state for
a writ of habeas corpus, and Booth, together with a col-
league, Rycraft, was again released.
The controversy now came before the Supreme Court at
Washington, and on petition of the Attorney-General a writ
of error was granted by that tribunal to be served on the
Supreme Court of Wisconsin. The state court, however,
refused to obey this writ. At length, on March 6, 1857,
330 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
the United States Supreme Court assumed jurisdiction, in
an unusual way, acting on the basis of a certified copy of
proceedings, which did not appear upon the official record.
At the December term, 1858, the judgment of the Supreme
Court of Wisconsin was reversed, and that court was directed
to return Booth into federal custody. Again the state court
would not yield obedience. Booth was therefore rearrested
by the United States marshal, March 1, 1860, and was con-
fined in the custom-house at Milwaukee. The friends of
the prisoner once more applied to the state Supreme Court
for a writ of habeas corpus, but, failing to get it on account
of a change in the personnel of the court, they did not rest
until they had rescued him from the government prison five
months later. On October 8 Booth was again arrested, and
this time he remained in prison until, under the pressure
brought to bear upon President Buchanan, he was pardoned
just before Lincoln's inauguration.^
Notwithstanding the obstinacy of the highest state court
in refusing to carry out the commands of the highest United
States court, the decision rendered by the latter in Booth's
case was of great importance. It clearly defined for the
first time the limits of state authority and disclosed the
powerlessness of state courts to override the jurisdiction
granted to the federal courts by the Constitution of the
United States.
The people of Wisconsin, however, were unwilling to
recognize this fact. Having enacted a personal liberty law
in 1857, they made Byron Paine, a young lawyer, who bad
taken a prominent part in the defence of Booth, their candi-
date in 1859 for associate justice of the Supreme Court, and
elected him on a combined anti-slavery and state rights issue.
Thus the state maintained its ground until the eve of the
Civil War. Then it relinquished it to assist in coercing
South Carolina and other Southern states from their seces-
sion, the right of which these states defended by the same
doctrine of state sovereignty .^
1 Atileman vs. Booth ; for references see Appendix B, 62, Glover rescue
case, p. 374.
2 This account of Booth's case is in the main a condensation of the excel-
RENDITION OF BUENS IN BOSTON 331
The Glover rescue occurred while the Kansas-Nebraska
Act was pending in Congress. The attempted rescue of
Burns came just after this piece of legislation, already passed
by the Senate, had been voted by the House. This measure,
which set aside the Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery
from all the Louisiana territory lying north of 36° 30' north
latitude, except that included within the State of Missouri,
deeply stirred public feeling in the free states : thus the
violence of the demonstrations in the Booth and Burns cases
was in some measure a protest against Douglas legislation.
Burns was arrested in Boston on May 24, 1854, under
a warrant granted by the United States commissioner. He
felt his case to be hopeless, and so told Richard H. Dana, Jr.,
and Theodore Parker; but they urged him to make a de-
fence, and prevailed on the commissioner to postpone the
hearing. Boston was soon ablaze with indignation kindled
in part by the inflammatory handbills scattered broadcast by
members of the Vigilance Committee. These handbills con-
tained invectives against the "kidnapper," and expressed
a sentiment prevalent in New England, as in other parts of
the North, when they declared "the compromises trampled
upon by the slave power when in the path of slavery are
to be crammed down the throat of the North."
In response to messages from the Vigilance Committee
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, A. Bronson Alcott and
others hurried to Boston to consult with the leaders there
on what was best to be done. A mass-meeting had been
called for Friday evening, the 26th, to be held in Faneuil Hall,
and it was now planned to make an attack, at the height of
this meeting, on the court-house, where Burns was in dur-
ance, and " send the whole meeting pell-mell to Court Square,
ready to fall in behind the leaders and bring out the slave."
lent and exhaustive discussion given by Mr. Vroman Mason in the Proceed-
ings of the State Sistorical Society, 1895, pp. 117-144. Other material will
be found in The Story of Wisconsin, 1890, by R. G. Thwaites, pp. 247-254 ;
A Complete Beeord of the John Olin Family, 1893, by C. C. Olin, pp. liii-
bmv; the Liberator, April 7 and 24, 1854; 3 Wisconsin Beports, pp. 1-64;
21 Howard's Beports, p. 606 et seq. ; Wilson, Bise and Fall of the Slave
Power, Vol. II, pp. 444-446.
332 UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
The city was in a state of wild excitement when the time for
action came, and it was natural that in the confusion existing
some of the arrangements should miscarry. The crowd
that filled Faneuil Hall was so dense as to cut off all com-
munication with the speakers on the platform, and prevented
concerted action. When, under the impassioned oratory of
Phillips, Parker and others, the audience had given evidences
of its readiness to undertake the rescue, the announcement
that an attack upon the court-house was about to begin was
made from the rear of the hall, and it was proposed that the
meeting should adjourn to Court Square. Phillips had not
received notice of the project, and the other speakers had not
fully comprehended it. The alarm was thought to be a scheme
to break up the meeting and was not followed by the decisive
action necessary to success.
Arriving at the court-house the crowd found a small party
under the lead of Higginson, Stowell and a negro battering in
a door with a stick of timber. Entrance was gained by a few
only, — who found themselves in the hands of the police, —
while the concourse outside was daunted at the outset by the
mysterious killing of one of the marshal's deputies. The
arrest of several of Higginson's companions followed, and a
renewal of the assault, if there was any danger of such a thing,
was prevented by the approach of two companies of artillery
and two more of marines ordered out by the mayor to pre-
serve the peace. Troops were retained at the court-house
during the examination of Burns, and it is reported by an eye-
witness that the seat of justice " had the air of a beleaguered
fortress." On the 2d of June Commissioner Loring remanded
the fugitive to slavery.
The presence in Boston of a multitude of visitors attracted
thither by the annual meeting of the New England Anti-
Slavery Society, the state convention of the Free Soil party,
and the spring meetings of the religious bodies, as well as by
the arrest of the negro, led the authorities to take all precau-
tions to forestall any fresh attempt at rescue when the fugi-
tive should be sent out of the city. Accordingly, over a
thousand soldiers with loaded muskets, and furnished with
a cannon loaded with grape-shot, were detailed to assist the
HOSTILITT TO THE SLAVE LAW IN ILLINOIS 333
city police and a large number of deputy marshals to carry
out the law. In the procession that accompanied Burns to
the United States revenue cutter, by which he was to be
carried back to Virginia, there were four platoons of marines
and a battalion of artillery, besides the marshal's civil posse
of one hundred and twenty-five men. Fifty thousand people
lined the streets along which this procession passed, and
greeted it with hisses and groans, while over their heads were
displayed many emblems of mourning and shame. It is little
wonder that the Enquirer of Richmond, Virginia, commenting
with satisfaction on the rendition of Burns, was led to add,
"but a few more such victories and the South is undone."*
Such was the state of public opinion in Massachusetts that
the Board of Overseers of Harvard College declined to con-
firm the election of Commissioner Loring as a member of the
Harvard faculty; and the people petitioned, until their re-
quest was granted, for his removal from the office of judge of
probate.
Similar hostility to the Fugitive Slave Law existed in Illi-
nois. John Reynolds, who had been governor of the state,
wrote about 1855 that when President Jackson issued his
proclamation in December, 1832, condemning nullification in
South Carolina, the legislature of Illinois hailed it with grati-
fication and pledged the state to sustain the executive in his
purpose to enforce the federal laws at all hazards. Jackson's
proclamation, he said, had a strong tendency to suppress
the spirit of nullification throughout the Union. The law of
1850 had been framed in pursuance of the Constitution, and
was hailed as the foundation of sectional peace and happiness,
but " within a few years, a section of the State of Illinois, the
city of Chicago, is not disposed to execute this act of Con-
gress. The opposition in Illinois to this law is not extensive,
but confined to a single city, so far as I know. Yet in that
disaffected district the act is a dead letter. . . ."^ The
number of centres in Illinois in which the act was disapproved
1 T. W. Higginson in The Atlantic Monthly, for March, 1897, p. 349-354 ;
Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 500-506 ; Wilson, Bise and
Fall of the Slave Power, Vol. II, pp. 434, 444.
2 John Reynolds' History of Illinois, 1855, pp. 269-271.
334 UNDERGROUND RAILEOAD
and violated was far beyond the knowledge of ex-Governor
Reynolds.
' In Ohio incidents arising out of the operations of the
Underground Railroad became the occasions for serious con-
tests between the state and federal authorities. On May 16,
1857, the United States deputy marshal for southern Ohio,
with nine assistants, entered the house of Udney Hyde, near
Mechanicsburg, Champaign County, in pursuit of a fugitive
slave. The approach of the posse had been observed by the
negro, who took refuge in Hyde's garret. Some firing was
done by both the negro and the marshal, with the result that
the officer and his party were glad to take their positions
outside of the house. Here they were soon found by a crowd
of citizens from the neighboring town, whose sympathies were
so unmistakably with the fugitive that the pursuers decided
to leave without delay. Returni 
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